


The Boy Who Leapt Through Time

by AmiLu



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Attempted Kidnapping, Established Matt/Allura, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith and Shiro are adopted siblings, Lance and Allura are Cousins, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Mystery, Pre-Slash, Swearing, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2018-10-20 05:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10656078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmiLu/pseuds/AmiLu
Summary: When Lance's terrible day took an unexpected turn, he was not prepared for the consequences that would come with it. When what first appeared to be a blessing results to actually be a curse, Lance will have to fight against time to find a solution or risk the lives and careers of everyone he loves, including some people he would never have thought to include in that category.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KaSaPe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaSaPe/gifts).



> HAPPY ~~very belated~~ BIRTHDAY, KAT!
> 
> I love you, and I wanted to write something interesting and cute for you, and then it got out of hand.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :D
> 
>  **UPDATE 11/20/2017**
> 
> Summary and tags have been updated, chapters 1-4 have been rewritten, but as there are important changes in these chapters, I've decided to take them down and post them again anew. (Except this one. This one was only edited.)
> 
> The story is complete, but as I still have to make some more edits, especially to the last chapters, I'll be posting every three days until I finish.
> 
> I'm so sorry it took me so long ; - ; Enjoy!

Lance’s breath came in gasps as he entered the school building. The rules said he couldn’t run inside, but didn’t say anything about walking fast. However, he was rather glad that he wasn’t actually running, or he would have probably collided with Pidge in the hallway. As it was, though, he managed to stop before running into her. She smiled at him, a little tiredly but with amusement shining in her eyes, and Lance winked and made finger guns at her. She snorted and rolled her eyes, but her smile turned a bit brighter.

They didn’t talk, however. Not until they finally reached the classroom.

“You’re late,” Hunk stated, not sounding the least bit accusatory as Lance and Pidge took their respective seats near him. Just like that, Lance remembered his morning troubles and groaned.

“My alarm died,” he whined, flopping onto the chair. He let his head fall on top of his arms, crossed over the desk. His next words came out a little muffled. “I woke up half an hour ago!”

Hunk made a noise in the back of his throat. “Man, that sucks,” he said sympathetically. Lance let out a pitiful noise in agreement.

It was his stupid alarm’s fault. His stupid, idiotic, good-for-nothing alarm clock. Lance honestly didn’t know why hadn’t he thrown the piece of trash away and bought himself a new one yet. This was not the first time it failed him, but it was the first time it made him two hours late to start his morning routine.

Lance was sure it was a bad omen. The whole day was going to suck, he could feel it.

“Did you have breakfast, at least?” Hunk asked, and just by his tone Lance could make out the tiny furrow in his brow. His best friend worried too much. This time, though, it was actually warranted.

As if on cue, Lance’s stomach growled. Loudly.

Lance groaned. “Nooo, and I had to literally _run_ here, Hunk. I’m starving!”

He had barely had time to wash his face, put on his uniform and rush out of the house a-la cliched main character of a shounen manga, nibbling on a piece of toast. It was so not cool. If he hadn’t lived so close to school, he would have definitely been late for class. With Iverson. That would have been terrible, as Lance hated Iverson, and the feeling was mutual.

“And you know what the worst part is?” Lance continued, lifting his head to make sure he was clearly conveying his outrage to his friends. “I could have brought my pudding—yummy, yummy pudding—but someone ate it! I was saving it for a special occasion and one of my siblings ate it!”

Pidge snorted, but before Lance could react to it, the door opened and Iverson strode in. The class hushed.

“‘Morning, class,” the man said gruffly, and half-hearted good mornings were said in return. Lance’s was full of sarcasm. “You may be wondering why I’m late,” he continued in a tone that was alarming in its conversational quality. Iverson didn’t do conversational. He simply… didn’t. Lance tensed in his seat, then studied his teacher closely. His eyes stopped on the pile of papers the man had just put on his desk, and his stomach dropped. Oh, no. No, no nonono _,_ please don’t let those be—“And the answer is,” the almost-grin in his face spelled doom, _“pop quiz!”_

Lance let his head hit the desk. It made a loud thump.

He was so screwed.

 

* * *

 

“I failed it. Miserably. Catastrophically. I know I did.”

“You’re being overdramatic,” Hunk pointed out, patiently. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think. You’re intelligent, Lance.”

“Yeah, Hunk has a point,” said Pidge, who was obviously still paying attention even though her eyes were fixed on her phone. She shifted the strap of her heavy-looking bag. “You may not have aced it, but I’m sure you didn’t fail it.”

Which was basically the same, for him. Lance had worked his ass off studying to pass the Garrison entrance exam, and even then he had barely passed—a fact that Iverson knew and never let Lance forget. Since then, he’d been trying his hardest to do the best he could in all his classes to prove to himself and everyone else that he deserved to be there, that he deserved the opportunity.

A barely passing mark was nothing to be proud of, in his books. It was almost as bad as failing.

His friends—geniuses, the both of them—wouldn’t understand, though. He had already tried to explain it, once, and hadn’t worked, so he kept his reasons to himself.

“Yeah—Yeah, you’re right,” he said with false cheer. “Thank you, guys.”

“Nah, dude. It’s just the truth,” Hunk said, beaming.

 

* * *

 

During Chem, he was paired up with Nyma.

This was it, he was sure. The redeeming feature of this horrible day. Perhaps he had been too hasty this morning when he’d labeled it a terrible one.

For a while, he truly believed that his luck had taken a turn and that things were starting to look up.

Well, to be fair, things had started to look amazing, actually. Like Nyma.

Man, she was _beautiful._

Lance had been trying to score a date with her since the start of the year, and she’d seemed suitably charmed with his flirting. Lance liked making her giggle with his antics, and he’d been pretty sure that any day now she would finally give in and accept his offer for a date. Being paired up with her for the project had to be a cosmic signal telling him that this was his chance.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the fates were really angry with Lance today, for whatever reason.

During the crucial part of the experiment (nothing complicated, just a simple acid solution they had done at least twice before; one that Lance hadn’t had a problem with after he’d understood what he was supposed to do and when), Nyma giggled, girly and cute and utterly charmed because of something Lance said, and Lance’s stupid hand had taken the wrong liquid to pour.

It was the moment everything went to shit, and both Lance’s hopes for a turn of luck and a date with Nyma went up in smoke. Quite literally.

Nyma’s eyes grew wide; her smile disappeared. Lance saw her face change into an expression of shocked fear, and he knew then that he had fucked up.

Sadly, it was already too late to do anything about it. Whatever it was the thing he added, he had poured enough of it to make the experiment explode and catch on fire.

There were screams of alarm and voices talking over each other in panic, but luckily the professor had the good sense of taking the fire extinguisher. Unluckily for Lance, the cuff of his shirt uniform had also caught fire, and he soon found himself drenched from head to toe in extinguisher foam.

‘Mixin volatile chemicals when you are having one of those days,’ Lance decided as he rubbed his face in a sad attempt to clean himself up, ‘is not a good idea.’

The tense silence that followed was terrible, but it had nothing on the glares he received when, after the fire had been taken care of, the sprinklers decided to activate. The shower of freezing-cold water did nothing to improve the mood of anyone there.

Lance chuckled awkwardly. “At least we know that they work?”

The glares intensified, reaching murderous levels, and Lance huddled up a bit on himself.

(And that date with Nyma? Yeah, he didn’t get it, after all.)

 

* * *

 

The day had it out for him, Lance decided an hour later. It was trying to destroy him.

What had he done to deserve this? Had he been some kind of serial puppy-killer in his past life or something? He must have because otherwise, he couldn’t understand why all these things were happening to him.

First his alarm, then the test, then the Chem disaster, and now this… Lance followed the trajectory of the dubious contents of his school lunch with his eyes, feeling a mix of incredulity and horror spread through him as it flew up, up, up—

—and down. Right onto a messy mop of black hair.

(In his defense, Lance definitely hadn’t done it on purpose. He had been tripped, dammit, and he was going to yell at the person responsible once he finished apologizing to the poor collateral victim of the prank.)

“Oh, man—I’m so sorry, I—” he started, but then the person turned and his apology died in his mouth. That’s what being suddenly faced with a furious Keith Kogane would do to you.

Lance couldn’t do anything but stare, slack-jawed, as the boy reached up to touch his hair. Something inside him wanted to stop him, to pretend that nothing had happened at all, but he knew it was ridiculous. There was no way Keith didn’t know. It was with a sense of awed detachment that he saw Keith’s expression darkening as he touched the mess that his hair had become, and Lance only snapped out of it when the boy glared daggers at him.

“Oh, you’re _on,_ ” Keith growled, scooping a handful of his own lunch and launching it at Lance.

Lance didn’t think, just reacted. It was probably what saved him.

He ducked, letting out a squeak he’d later deny ever making, barely avoiding being hit full in the face with the disgusting goo. Unfortunately, his last-second action meant that it was the person behind him the one who received the full force of the attack. And, even worse for Lance (and everyone in the cafeteria, honestly), the one behind him was not Hunk, who would have probably laughed it off good-naturedly and gone on his way, but Pidge.

Time slowed down. The normal buzz of the cafeteria disappeared completely, the air tense in anticipation.

Slowly—terribly slowly—Pidge took off her glasses and cleaned them up with the hem of her shirt. If the circumstances were different, Lance would have laughed. Pidge looked ridiculous: her whole face was covered in food except for the skin around her eyes, where the glassed covered. Lance was too busy fearing for his life to laugh, however. Pidge may be a small girl and look relatively harmless, but her appearance was a vile lie. She could be absolutely terrifying when mad.

The unholy glint in her eyes as she lifted her head and put on her now clean glasses made a shiver of apprehension travel down Lance’s spine.

Before he could react, his face was hit full-on with a handful of food.

He sputtered and cleaned his eyes quickly, just in time to see Pidge throwing a second handful of food directly at Keith, who was too surprised to react. It landed squarely on his surprised face.

That was the start of the war.

Food flew everywhere and soon the cafeteria was bursting with the sound of the laughter and screams of dozens of students. The angry shouts of teachers trying and failing to stop the madness joined the melee sometime later, but went completely ignored.

Lance had a lot of fun, he couldn’t say he didn’t. But as he was later dragged to the principal’s office to receive both a lecture and a detention together with Keith Kogane for being the initiators of the biggest food fight the Galaxy Garrison had seen in years, Lance cursed his luck to hell.

 

* * *

 

“It’s not funny!” he snapped, glowering angrily at his so-called best friends as they made their way to their last class.

“It kinda is,” Hunk said, amusement coloring his tone.

Pidge, the little hellion, didn’t even attempt to appease him; she was snickering loudly and clutching her stomach as tears of mirth rolled down her cheeks. She had only gotten out of detention because of her incredibly believable _I’m-completely-innocent_ face and Lance’s keen desire to survive until he reached adulthood, at least.

“You are the worst friends ever, I swear,” Lance growled petulantly, not meaning it at all.

“Look on the positive side,” Pidge said, voice a bit breathy after laughing so much. Lance tensed. There was something in her tone that put him immediately on guard. He narrowed his eyes and studied her carefully, and then the suspicion turned to horrified alarm as she grinned evilly and continued, “now you have two hours alone with Keith to look forward to!”

Lance’s voice did not go an octave higher. It really didn’t. “And why in hell would I look forward to that? It’s basically torture!”

“Mmm, sure. Keep telling yourself that,” Pidge said, rolling her eyes. “But denial is not just a river in Egypt, you know.”

“What has Egypt gotta do with anything?”

“Nothing, Lance. Nothing.”

“So what is it, exactly?” Hunk interrupted before Lance could press Pidge for a better answer. “Your detention?” he clarified when Lance looked at him blankly.

Lance scowled and looked down. “Hell if I know,” he grumbled, slouching a bit. Then he snapped his head up and narrowed his eyes at Hunk. “But I assure you, I’m not looking forward to it. Not one bit.”

 

* * *

 

Lance grumbled under his breath.

Looking forward to it, indeed. As if there was anything in the awkward, tense atmosphere of the practically empty classroom that was worth looking forward to.

Lance could say with complete certainty that it was the most awkward detention in the whole history of detentions that Lance had ever had. (Which, for the record, was very small, thank you. This was actually his second, and none of them were supposed to happen in the first place. They weren’t his fault!)

Keith was moody and silent and kept scowling darkly every time Lance so much as looked in his direction. In turn, Lance scowled right back and stubbornly refused to speak even one word to diffuse the tension. Their teacher—not Iverson, thankfully, Lance could at least celebrate small miracles—dozed off on his desk, not even pretending to keep an eye on the two of them. Their phones had been confiscated, but apart from that, they had absolutely nothing to do. Lance had taken out his homework and had at least tried to start on it, but his brain refused to focus. He spent most of those two hours alternatively doodling on the margins, playing absently with his blue pendant, and glaring at Keith.

Lance was going insane.

The moment the bell rang, he didn’t wait for a second before getting out of the room. He swept his things haphazardly and threw them into his bag, collected his phone from the teacher, and practically ran away. He didn’t even stop to acknowledge Keith’s presence, or say goodbye, but it was not as if Keith had done so, either, so Lance didn’t feel too bad about it.

 

* * *

 

His phone buzzed, and Lance quickly dug it out of the pocket of his backpack.

“Lance, did you get the milk?” his mother’s voice asked immediately after he accepted the call. Lance closed his eyes and grimaced because no, no he hadn’t. He had completely forgotten about it.

“Um…”

His mother sighed, drawn-out and disappointed, and Lance cringed.

“Sorry,” he hurried to say. “I forgot, but I can still make it!”

“...Okay,” she accepted after a second of contemplation. “But don’t be out too late, alright? And get some butter, too.”

“Gotcha. See you later, Ma.”

 

* * *

 

Grocery bag in hand, he was out of the store and making his way towards home when it happened.

He was reaching the curb and, as he could see from afar that the light was blinking intermittently, he slowed down his steps. He wasn’t going to make it in time to cross before the next green light, anyway, so why hurry?

A dog let out a loud bark. A little child started crying. A car honked.

The light turned red, and Lance stopped.

One, two, three—a pain in his back. A shove? He stumbled, unable to keep his footing. He hissed in pain. There was a car. It was blue. A Toyota.

It was going to hit him.

He was going to die.

Lance closed his eyes tightly as his heart beat madly in his chest, in his throat. He couldn’t hear anything but its thumping.

Time seemed to stop and, for a moment, there was no noise. Then the cries and screams of terrified people became deafening as the car tried to stop, tires screeching, but it was too late.

He was dead, dead, dead—

He was… falling?

He crashed to the ground and swore. The palms of his hands were on fire. His temples throbbed, sending pulses of white-hot pain to the back of his eyelids. His stomach rebelled. He wanted to die.

Die?

A dog barked. A little boy started crying.

Someone was screaming at him. “...be more careful! Apologize, immediately!”

It was a woman, Lance could tell. He opened his eyes to see her, ignoring the flash of _pain pain pain_ that came with it, and focused on her robust figure. She had her fists on her hips and there was a bag of groceries spilled around her. There was a little boy crying big fat tears at her side. She was obviously angry, but Lance…didn’t understand.

He had died. He was sure he had. He was dead, that car—

A honk.

Lance’s eyes widened and he whipped his head towards the crosswalk, just in time to see the light turn red. A blue Toyota that he wouldn’t soon forget zoomed past the zebra line, without taking anybody’s life this time.

And Lance didn’t understand it.

The woman was screaming louder now, saying something about uneducated youth these days, but Lance wasn’t paying attention to her. He was too busy trying to make sense of the last few minutes.

What the fuck had just happened?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I know _nothing_ of chem, so if that part doesn't make sense, that's why. Lmao, feel free to correct me. I tried to make it as vague as possible xD)
> 
> I'd say I'm sorry for the cliffhanger, but I'm really not.
> 
> Oh! Also, this was vaguely inspired by the movie: "The Girl Who Leaped Through Time" (hence the title) but it doesn't really follow the plot of that, at all.
> 
> [My tumblr](http://kurosakiami01.tumblr.com), if you want to talk to me! :D


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note for whoever missed it: I've rewritten this story. If you read chapters 1-4 before, you may want to reread them as I post, as some things have changed from the original version. If you're new, welcome! I hope you enjoy! :D

“Lance!” his mother hollered from downstairs.

Lance groaned and turned in his bed, squishing his face into his pillow. It was too early. At least, it felt like it was too early to get up. It was Saturday, and Lance still hadn’t gotten over his terrible day, almost-death experience included. Couldn’t he stay in bed just a little longer…?

“Lance!” she called again, sharper this time, with a hint of threat. Lance whimpered, but struggled to open his eyes and sit on his bed.

“‘m awake!” he answered, voice rough and scratchy from sleep. “Whaddya need?”

“I promised Allura I’d bring her housewarming gift today, but something came up and I can’t go. Be a dear and do it for me, yeah?”

Lance let out a long exhale. Rubbing gritty eyes with one hand, he got out of bed and shivered when his skin was exposed to the chilly morning air. ‘Be a dear,’ his mother said. That was everything but friendly. It was a clear order; and one he could not refuse. But it wasn’t like Lance had anything planned for the day, and he liked hanging out with his cousin, so he wouldn’t have refused anyway.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling on his night robe and shuffling to the bathroom. “Lemme change and eat breakfast, and I’ll go.”

“Thank you, Lancey. I’ll make you some pancakes.”

Lance perked up at that. Well, at least he got pancakes out of it. He washed his night mask off, and then carefully began with his precious morning routine that had been so completely whacked the day before. He hummed in pleasure as he moisturized, and by the time he had finished combing his hair and changing into his clothes, he felt fresh and lively and ready to truly start the day.

 

* * *

 

Allura was Lance’s second cousin twice removed, or something complicated like that. They had never bothered with technicalities, though.

“Prima! Mamá gave me things for you!” he said as he barged right into the bookstore, ignoring the chiming of the bell.

“Good morning, young Lance!” a cheerful voice answered him, and Lance blinked in confusion for a second, before smiling widely at the red-headed man behind the counter.

“Oh, hi, Coran!” he chirped, moving towards him and carefully putting down the bright yellow bag his mother had given him that contained Allura’s present. “Is Allura in?”

“She’s on the back, looking for something,” Coran answered, though he was distracted examining the bag. “What is this, if I may ask?”

Lance shrugged, unconcerned. “No idea, really,” he said honestly. “Ma just gave it to me and told me it was fragile, so be careful or else. All I know is that it’s a…housewarming present?” He frowned, unsure. It was actually the first time he heard of Allura moving houses, and he might have gotten it wrong.

“Ah.” Coran nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Well, I’ll just take it to the back and call Allura over, if you have time for a little chat?”

“Sure. It’s not like I have anything else to do, and I haven’t seen you two in ages. We might as well catch up.”

Coran beamed at him and carefully took the bag. “Take a seat, then. I’ll be right back.”

Lance did as told and let himself fall on his favorite black couch. There were others in the tiny space Allura had created so people could read some without having to buy the books first, but Lance liked the black one the best. It was the comfiest. He sighed in pleasure as he let it take all of his weight. Man, he loved that couch. Every time he visited, he always felt tempted to steal it. Sadly, it was way too big and heavy for him to move it around.

“Lance!” Allura exclaimed happily as she entered the room. Lance jumped to his feet and let her hug him, returning the gesture with a big smile.

“Hi, Prima! Long time no see!”

“Don’t remind me,” she said, sighing and letting him go. She tucked a lock of wavy white hair behind an ear and smiled at him. Lance raised an eyebrow, looking her over. She had shadows under her eyes and her skin didn’t look as healthy as it normally did. Lance frowned.

“You look like death warmed over,” he said worriedly, grabbing her elbow and gently making her seat on the couch with him. “Are you sick?”

“No, no,” Allura said, moving a hand in front of her face in a dismissive gesture. “Nothing like that. I’m just tired. The move has been hell on me,” she explained, chuckling.

“Yeah, about that...” Lance drawled, “when did you move out, and why?”

“Oh.” She blinked, surprised. “You haven’t heard?”

“Obviously not, I wouldn’t be asking otherwise.” He raised his eyebrows when Allura’s expression turned into a bashful, pleased smile.

“Well...Matt and I. We bought an apartment together,” she said. “After he proposed to me.”

Lance’s eyes grew wide for a second, and then he grinned. “Oho! He proposed? Allura, why am I just hearing about this right now?”

She shrugged with one shoulder and covered the lower part of her face with a hand. Was she blushing? She was! It didn’t show all that obviously on her brown skin, but the smile that was reflected in the sparkling of her eyes, however, was radiant.

“It’s not common knowledge,” she said sincerely. “We’re waiting until the next family reunion to make an announcement. Actually, you’re the second person after Coran to know.”

Lance felt both stunned and touched. “Really? But…” He frowned, confused. “Mamá?”

“She knows we’ve moved in together,” she pointed out, “but not that we’re engaged. Not yet.” Then she was the one frowning. “Though she might suspect, anyway. You know how she is,” she said, smiling helplessly.

Lance knew the feeling, and laughed a little. “Yeah, I know. She probably does. Congratulations, though! I’m really happy for you, Allura. For both of you.”

She smiled at him gratefully.

“Wait a second. Does this mean that Pidge is now officially my cousin now? Oh my god, did she know and hasn’t told me? What even…?”

Allura laughed, amused. “I don’t think Matt has told her yet, Lance. We agreed to wait to the next family reunion with the Holts, too, so that both our families knew more or less at the same time. But yes, this does make Katie your little cousin, ‘officially’ now.”

“This is crazy,” he muttered, but couldn’t stop smiling. “You’re gonna get married. _Married,_ Allura.”

Allura giggled at his awed tone, and Lance couldn’t help but feel fond of both her and Matt, who made his cousin so obviously happy.

“Yes, I am,” she agreed, “but that’s quite enough about me. How have _you_ been, Lance? What about your love life? Any cute girl or boy that caught your eye?”

Lance groaned and put his head in his hands. “Don’t even start talking about that. You won’t believe what happened to me yesterday.”

“Oh? Do tell. This sounds interesting,” she prompted, mischievous. Lance did want to talk about it with someone, even though it was embarrassing and confusing, so he told her.

He began with his terrible morning wake up and continued retelling all the little gritty details leading up to the Chem Disaster without barely taking a breath, wildly gesticulating with his hands. Allura was the perfect audience, making small, understanding noises in all the right places.

“Oh, God, Lance,” she exclaimed after he explained the food fight, and the terribly boring detention that came after it. Her expression wavered, as if she couldn’t decide between laughing and showing compassion.  

“And that’s not even the end of it,” he said somberly, maintaining eye contact even as Allura looked at him disbelievingly.

“Seriously? What else happened? Please tell me you didn’t get mugged or something. Please.”

“Or something,” Lance said drily. At Allura’s alarmed expression, he hastened to clarify, “I’m fine! I don’t—I don’t know what exactly happened, but...”

Allura’s face hardened. “Explain.”

Lance bit his lip, hesitating, but her stern, worried expression made him finally admit, “I was almost hit by a car?”

“What?” She jumped from her seat and got in front of Lance, hands on both sides of his face, examining him carefully. There was a deep frown between her eyes. When she didn’t find anything out of place, any bruise or scratch, she looked him in the eye, grave. “Lance, what happened?”

Lance sighed. “I don’t really know, Allura. I stopped at the curb. The light was red. And then someone or something pushed me, I don’t know, I didn’t see it. And then the car was coming and I was just _there_ and suddenly I…wasn’t there anymore?”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” He passed a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I was there, and the car was going to hit me. Then I closed my eyes and fell, but then I opened them and suddenly was away from the curb, and the light had just turned, and the car passed and _I wasn’t there.”_

His eyes were wide when he looked at her, hoping that she had something to say that would help make sense of the strange event.

He hadn’t told anyone about it. In fact, he had almost convinced himself that it all had been a daydream, a weird kind of hallucination. But right then, with his cousin who had always had a keen interest in strange things like magic and aliens and who probably would not dismiss Lance’s words immediately, he felt safe enough to bring it up.

Allura had a contemplative frown on her beautiful face, and her eyes were slightly narrowed and unfocused as she thought. She was reclining back on the couch, her hand pulling softly at her right dangling earring.

“Allura?” Lance asked after a few minutes of silence.

She hummed distractedly and got to her feet, walking towards the nearest bookcase without really looking at its contents.

“You closed your eyes,” she said, turning towards Lance once again. Lance wasn’t sure whether it was actually a question, but he answered affirmatively nonetheless. Allura hummed again. “I think, maybe...”

“What?”

She didn’t answer immediately, and Lance could feel himself tensing, curiosity mixing with anxiety that would probably make him snap soon if she didn’t stop being so vague.

“And, just to clarify, you were in mid-jump? When you were about to die,” she asked, cutting off Lance’s second ‘what?’ before it could actually form.

Lance blinked, confused, and looked curiously at Coran as the man inhaled sharply. He had been quiet until that moment, so quiet that Lance had practically forgotten he was there.

“I—Yeah?” He looked back to Allura, feeling completely out of his depth. “I think so? I mean—”

She tapped her chin with a finger. “Mmm…it sounds like a Time Leap, doesn’t it?” she muttered, barely audible, and then louder she asked, “Coran? What do you say, Time Leap?”

Coran twirled his mustache, pensive. “Yes… Yes, it definitely sounds like a Time Leap.”

Allura smiled, satisfied.

“Um,” Lance interrupted, impatient. “A what, now?”

“A Time Leap,” she repeated, which didn’t really mean anything to him. Before he could say as much, though, she continued, “Lance, have you eaten anything strange lately?”

The sudden, unexpected question threw him for a loop. “Strange how? Because let me tell you, the school cafeteria food could be alien food, for all I know.”

“No. Something…” She moved her hand in an impatient gesture. “I don’t know. Something you don’t usually eat.”

“Not…really?”

“Have you been to any new places? Places you don’t normally go? Have you gotten anything new lately?”

“I bought a toothbrush the other day...”

Allura huffed, irritated. “No, not something packed.”

“What Allura wants to know,” Coran interrupted, getting both Lance’s and Allura’s attention, “is whether you’ve acquired any kind of artifact without knowing its origin. Maybe from an antiques’ shop, or maybe something you found lying somewhere? A gift, perhaps?”

Lance frowned and sat back on the couch, thinking. Had he found something weird lately? Nothing came to mind when he thought about it.

“No, not really.”

Allura hummed, dissatisfied. “Well, maybe you’ll remember later.”

“Maybe,” Lance conceded, though a bit dubious. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, though,” he pointed out, and if he sounded a little frustrated, well…he was. He was completely out of the loop here, and he hated being left out. Sadly, it happened quite frequently when it came to his cousin and her godfather. They seemed to share a thought frequency that the rest of the world was unable to tap into.

“Oh!” Allura smiled apologetically. “Sorry. It’s just so rare—”

“Pretty uncommon, I’d say.” Coran nodded. “I’ve read about cases like this…young people traveling back and forth in time for a few seconds, sometimes changing little things.”

“Wa—wait. What? _Time traveling?”_

“Well, it definitely sounds like that’s what you did, does it not?” Coran said easily. “You remember the sequence of sounds, and the car. You were there one second, and the next… you were not. It was like you rewound time a few seconds, and changed the future when you didn’t walk up to the curb.”

Lance’s head hurt. It made sense, but it _didn’t_ because how was it possible?

It wasn’t, that’s why.

“Time travel is impossible,” he said, certain.

“It’s _rare,_ ” Allura contradicted, gently but firmly, “not impossible. There are recounts of it through history. It’s there in the little discrepancies in events you can read in different sources. Discrepancies that go beyond the ideology of the authors. Not to mention direct recounts, even if they have always been brushed off as exaggeration or craziness.”

Lance shook his head and got to his feet. “I still don’t think that’s what happened to me. I mean—why would be able to…to what, _jump back_ in time?”

“Essentially.”

“...whatever. No. Look, thanks for the help, but it was probably just me daydreaming.”

“Lance...”

“It’s fine, Allura. Really.” Lance gave her a bright smile. “I was tired and cranky and the day had been hell. I’m sure it was some kind of mental trick, nothing else.”

“But—”

“If it happens again, I’ll come tell you, okay? I promise.”

Allura sighed deeply, but nodded. “Okay. Just…be careful, yes?”

“I will. Thank you, Prima.”

Her lips curved up into a little smile. “You’re always welcome, Primo. Give my thanks and my love to Amanda, will you?”

“Sure thing. Call her later and tell her how you liked the present, okay? She’ll pester me forever if you don’t.”

Chuckling, she hugged him. “Okay.”

“See you, Allura. Bye, Coran!”

“Goodbye, Lance!”

 

* * *

 

“Ridiculous,” he mumbled, kicking a conveniently placed pebble on the sidewalk. “Completely nuts. Crazy. There is no way that I—leap through time, honestly.” Lance shook his head and huffed. “There’s simply no way.”

Whatever had happened to him yesterday must have been a trick of his mind.

It must have.

But what if…?

Lance stopped walking and looked around. The bus stop on the other block was empty; there wasn’t anyone around to see him. Nobody to judge him as he stopped for a minute and closed his eyes, thinking.

He was a little sorry he had cut off his visit with Allura so short, but he’d been feeling a bit overwhelmed back there. Getting away had seemed the best course of action. He still felt a little out of sorts, but even though he wasn’t sold on Allura and Coran’s idea of time-traveling, he couldn’t stop himself from considering it. After all, it could explain the whole thing...if he let himself believe it.

But just once wasn’t enough. No. To really believe it, he needed to live through it at least one more time.

The question was how? He hadn’t done anything special, when it happened. He had closed his eyes and prayed that it wouldn’t hurt much, basically. He was scared, and in pain, yes. He had been about to die, after all. What else? What had he _felt?_

Detachment.

As if he saw everything happening from outside his body, as if he were another person, it hadn’t felt real. But, at the same time, he’d felt and seen and heard everything in terrifying vivid detail. It was not something he could understand, really, much less to explain.

He was in pain, and scared, and then he fell.

He fell.

_Falling._

Lance opened his eyes and looked around once again, checking that he was still alone.

He was.

A leap, huh? He bit his lip, tensed his muscles, and jumped.

Even expecting the result, he felt utterly ridiculous when it failed and nothing at all happened.

He took a deep breath. Okay, okay. That had been stupid, and it hadn’t felt like falling at all. Maybe if he jumped with a little bit more force…?

A step, another. Quicker. He was almost running; he crossed the street. He jumped, eyes closed tightly. The sensation as he fell was sharper, clearer, and he crouched down as he touched the pavement to absorb the impact to his knees. His heart was loud in his ears; he tried to swallow back the excitement that was thrumming through his veins. Opening one eye, Lance peered around, and his face crumbled.

Nothing had happened. _Again._

He huffed out an annoyed breath. “This is stupid,” he grumbled, snorting at his own gullible nature. “There’s no way.”

He really must have imagined it.

Giggles made him turn, alarmed. A group of kids was looking at him and laughing. They hadn’t been there before! Had they seen? Lance blushed hotly and covered the little distance to the stop in two long strides. He sat down and pulled out his earphones.

Dammit, that was embarrassing. He needed to forget about all this nonsense. It was completely useless.

 

* * *

 

Trying to convince himself to forget about it was a very different thing from actually forgetting about it.

Lance couldn’t stop mulling through the different possibilities as he absently looked out of the bus window. What if he could really go back in time? What if he could…change things? Erase a day, completely. Begin anew. Do well on the pop quiz, get a date with Nyma. Avoid the food fight and, therefore, detention. It would be _brilliant._ Wasn’t it worth it another try? What was the worse that could happen? People may laugh at him, again. So what? It wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last, either.

Yeah, it was completely worth it another try. Being scared released adrenaline, yeah? So what if he did something risky to try it again? Maybe _that_ was the key.

So when the bus stopped, and it was Lance’s turn to get down, he jumped instead of taking the steps like normal. He felt that curious flip-flop sensation in his stomach as gravity worked, and he fell.

He crashed to the ground in a roll.

Lance swore, opening his eyes and blinking the stars away. He rubbed his head where it had impacted with the ground as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, trying to see if—

“What are you doing?” A boy’s voice asked, full of incredulous disbelief.

Lance whipped his head around and found himself looking at the confused face of Keith Kogane. He was wearing his uniform, hair still damp after having haphazardly washed it in the bathroom stall. Lance’s own hair was curled messily around his ears after having done the same thing.

Holy fu—This was the school. This was detention with Keith Kogane, _the day before._

Lance made a strangled noise in his throat, but then tried to calm down. It wouldn’t do, to gape like an idiot.

“I was bored?” he said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement. He cleared his throat and feigned nonchalance. “I thought a bit of acrobatics would make time pass quicker.”

“Uh-huh,” Keith said doubtfully. “You’re weird.”

Lance’s mouth dropped in outrage. The nerve! He huffed and turned away from Keith, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Whatever.”

Why was this time he’d ended up in? Couldn’t have he jumped back to an earlier moment, before the day had already been lost? This was useless—!

He blinked, and the next moment he was rolling on the floor again, and didn’t stop until he crashed into someone’s legs. The person yelped and fell, too, right on top of Lance.

“Ow, fuck, ay!” Lance rubbed his head and blinked the dark spots in his vision away. Everything fucking hurt.

“What do you think you’re doing?” growled the man he had crashed into as he pushed himself to his feet.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Are you okay?” another person asked, approaching Lance and helping him stand up. It was a girl, broad-shouldered and very tall, but with really kind eyes that shone with worry.

“Uh, yeah,” Lance said, a little disoriented. “I’m all right. I just…um, fell.” He turned to the angry man that was still glowering at him. “Sorry, mister.”

The man huffer. “Fine. Be more careful from now on, boy.”

Lance rolled his eyes after the asshole took off, but softened his expression as he turned to the girl that had helped him out. “What a nice guy, huh?” he commented sarcastically.

“I saw you fall from that bus,” she said worriedly. “You sure you aren’t hurt anywhere?”

Lance shifted his weight from foot to foot, testing it. His head hurt, but not in a physical sense. And now that the first shock of the fall had worn off, nothing else really hurt, not in any way that mattered.

“Nah, I’m good. Thank you, though,” he said with a smile.

The girl inspected him carefully for another second, but then seemed to come to the conclusion that he was telling the truth, and she smiled, too. “No problem. But please, do be more careful getting down the bus from now on. Some drivers are a menace and you could get seriously hurt.”

Lance snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks, again!”

She chuckled and left, leaving Lance alone with his thoughts. Thoughts which immediately circled back to what _really_ had happened when he fell from the bus.

He needed to try it once more. Just to test it.

He needed to be _sure._

 

* * *

 

“This is a terrible idea,” Lance murmured under his breath as he took off his jacket and folded it carefully so that it could fit inside the little nook on the rock on the side of the bridge, where it would hopefully be safe. “A stupid, terrible idea.”

He was on the bridge near his house, the one that the kids of the neighborhood used in the hot summer days to dare each other into playing those silly games to prove they were brave. Lance himself had jumped from it a couple of times, and he knew it was safe. He knew that. The river in this part was calm and shallow, with just enough depth as to avoid hitting the bottom hard when you jumped.

It was probably freezing cold, though. It was November.

But if he was right, and what triggered the Leap was adrenaline, then… He could jump. Here. It was safe.

That was the reasoning that brought him here in the first place, instead of going directly back home.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” he said. He stretched his limbs, took a deep breath, and started running.

By the time he jumped over the handrails, he was grinning so much his face hurt. He felt like a kid again. He should try to convince Hunk to go bridge jumping in the summer again, it was awesome!

People screamed as he fell, but he ignored them. He closed his eyes and breathed.

He was expecting the impact, but not the pain as he crashed to the floor and then rolled on it until a wall stopped him. Fuck, he needed to stop doing that or his head would have a permanent lump. Blinking both tears and black dots away from his vision, he tried to see around to learn where he had ended up in. And _when._

(Holy cow, it had worked. It had really worked!)

He was home. Soft morning sun spilled through the window and onto the mess of magazines and other trinkets on the coffee table. Lance knew for sure that his mom had cleaned that up just today. His eyes widened. “No way,” he breathed, then looked at the clock. It read seven forty-five.

His mother came out of the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him. She frowned. “Lance? What are you still doing here? You’ll be late! Go, go, go! And don’t forget the milk!”

And Lance suddenly found himself out of the front door, with a piece of toast on hand, dressed in his school uniform. He gaped for a while, dumbstruck.

“Lance, I swear to God, if you don’t start moving—”

Lance ran.

 

* * *

 

“You’re late,” Hunk said, not sounding the least bit accusatory.

“My alarm died,” he chirped, flopping onto his chair while Pidge sat behind him, as usual. He rummaged into his bag and took out both his normal pen and his correction one, then let the bag drop to the floor. “I woke up half an hour ago!”

“Man, that sucks,” Hunk said, frowning. “Did you have breakfast, at least?”

“A piece of toast.” He shrugged and ignored the horrified face of his best friend. “I would have brought my pudding, but someone ate it before I realized.” He pouted. He was still angry about that, but pudding wasn’t important enough to jump again so soon. Changing the outcome of this particular day, however... “I’ll eat something later, don’t worry.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Lance?” Pidge asked. Lance turned and pinned her with a wounded look, a hand over his heart.

“Why, Pidgeon! You hurt my feelings!”

Pidge snorted. “No way. You’re not tricking me. You got up late, which means that your ridiculous morning routine—”

“Hey, my routine is perfect!”

“It’s ridiculous. It takes you _two_ hours, Lance. Two full hours.”

“Looking good takes time.”

“...whatever. You woke up fifteen minutes ago. Your morning routine was obliterated. You didn’t have breakfast. Someone ate your pudding. And you’re not whining dramatically? You cannot be Lance. Are you sick?”

Lance didn’t know if he should feel touched by her worry, or deeply offended by her skepticism. “I’m fine, honest. Just…feeling good. Like today I can do…pretty much anything.”

The door opened just before she could answer that, and in came Iverson with the piles of papers of doom. The whole class shut up and straightened into attention.

“‘Morning, class,” Iverson said gruffly, and half-hearted good mornings were said in return. “You may be wondering why am I late. And the answer is…” Lance had to fight off the victorious grin that wanted to stretch on his face. Bring it on. “ _Pop quiz!”_

After all, he had already lived through this, once.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish notes: Ma/Mamá: Mom; Prima/o: cousin. There won't be more Spanish than this, don't worry :)
> 
> Also, I forgot to mention before: I came up with the whole concept of this story waaaay before seasons 3 and 4, so there are some reveals that came later that simply won't appear in this fic. 
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


	3. Chapter 3

The only sounds in the room were the beeping of the machines and the rhythmic inhale and exhale of the occupant of the bed.

Haggar changed the crossed position of her legs and turned a page. The chairs in this particular hospital were as uncomfortable as the ones in any other. She was in the middle of the third paragraph when there was a rustle of sheets, and then a deep groan announced the patient had awakened. She put a bookmark between the pages and quietly closed the book.

“So, you are awake,” she stated as she critically observed Haxus sit up and glare at the IV needle in his arm. The man jumped minimally and quickly looked at her, showing his teeth in warning. She lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. “I admit to be surprised that you could be so irresponsible. They found you passed out in an alleyway downtown.”

The surprised, defensive look transformed into a deep scowl. “I wasn’t drunk,” he hissed, then immediately closed his eyes and groaned, falling back onto the pillows.

Haggar inclined her head and hummed. “Not drunk, no. The doctors didn’t find any foreign substance in your bloodstream.” She put the book away and rose to her feet. Silently, she continued examining the prone form of her subordinate, who refused to look at her. She let the silence stretch for a moment longer, and then said, tone deceptively calm, “That, however, still does not account for the state you were found in. Care to explain?”

Haxus’ knuckles turned white around the handful of sheets, and his jaw tensed. He opened his eyes and regarded her warily. Haggar let him. She could see he was weighing several options in his mind, and she knew him well enough to know that if she didn’t press him now, he’d talk. She wasn’t disappointed.

He broke eye contact, pressing his lips together. “You won’t believe me,” he said at last, and there was anger in his voice. In spite of herself, she was now intrigued.

“Try me.”

Haxus snapped his eyes back to her and held eye contact for a few beats in which silence reigned supreme in the white room, only interrupted by the soft beep of the machines.

After a few tense minutes, he huffed out a long breath. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell you. But first…tell me the date.”

“Friday, November 17th.”

“Year?”

Haggar raised an eyebrow, but answered, “2017.”

Haxus’ mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.”

 

* * *

 

The day was turning out to be fantastic. Lance had already known it would be much different from his first attempt at it, and he was proven right when he did pretty well on the pop quiz that morning. But once he actually got a _date_ out of it, he became absolutely certain.

He opted for being careful during Chem instead of outrageously flirting with Nyma, and as a result, he completely avoided the fire disaster. Lance’s charm was subdued but not at all absent, and Nyma was completely enchanted by it. She was happy and giggly and flirting back, and so when Lance suggested they should have lunch together, she accepted.

Lance was on cloud nine.

Granted, they were only going to sit together for lunch in the cafeteria, nothing grand and utterly romantic like Lance had imagined, but it was still a lot more than she had ever given him before. He couldn’t wait!

“I can’t believe she gave in,” Pidge said as they left their last morning class and started towards the cafeteria. “I didn’t think she would.”

Lance scowled playfully at her. “And why not? She’s always responded well to my flirting! It was just a matter of time before she fell for my charms.”

“I’m happy for you, man,” Hunk said sincerely, distracting Lance’s attention away from Pidge. “I know how much you like her.”

Pidge grumbled something under her breath, but Lance wasn’t able to catch any words. However, before he could ask, they reached the doors of the cafeteria where Nyma was already waiting for Lance.

“Oh, she’s here! See ya guys later!”

“Good luck!” Hunk wished him while Pidge said, “Yeah, yeah.”

Lance stopped in front of Nyma with a big smile on his face. “Hi, beautiful. Are you ready for lunch?”

Nyma smiled softly at him and pushed a few of her tiny braids away from her face, making them fall behind her shoulders. Her beautiful blue eyes sparkled. “Ready.”

“Okay, let’s go!”

He might have skipped a bit as he walked, but who could blame him? Everything was going great in his life, for once!

So could somebody explain how the fuck he ended up being dragged to the principal’s office with Keith Kogane, _again?_

Lance hadn’t started the food fight this time! He hadn’t even been near the focus of it!

He had been happily chatting with Nyma—his hand slowly advancing over the table towards hers, almost touching the slim fingers—when suddenly the screams had started. Both of them looked up and around with shock, and then food was flying everywhere.

Nyma was hit in the face. Her expression was so horrified and she had looked so _cute_ that Lance lost the fight against his bubbling laughter. She had shot him a betrayed look before it changed into a devious one, an evil playful smile pulling her lips upwards. Then she scooped a handful of her own food, and joined the fight by throwing it directly at Lance. At that point, Lance didn’t have any other option than join, too. He laughed, Nyma laughed, people screamed and they joined a team together, and it was perfect because they were having so much _fun_ and Nyma was laughing so hard she was beautiful and radiant and then—

Then everything went to _hell_ when Keith somehow crashed behind the overturned table they were using as a fortress. One moment they were laughing and throwing food, and the next one the teachers had managed to regain some kind of control over the students and Lance and Keith were being unceremoniously summoned to the principal’s together, accused of being the instigators of the fight. _Again._

It was so unfair! But it wasn’t until Lance saw Iverson’s smug face among the angry teachers that he understood. Oh, the bastard was responsible for this, somehow. He was sure of it.

Lance fumed as he walked, covered from head to toe in disgusting cafeteria goop. And then he stopped in his tracks, just for a second, because he suddenly remembered. He could change this. He could literally change this for the better; he just needed a little jump.

Lance looked to the side and found a window. Perfect.

He ignored the teacher’s barking and started running. There were cries of alarm behind him, but Lance was already jumping, closing his eyes, a grin on his lips.

Two rolls and he sprung to his feet, looking around with a self-satisfied smile. He was getting better at this; it didn’t hurt half as much as the other times. He was finally getting the hang of how to land.

“...What are you doing?” Nyma asked dubiously from behind him, and Lance twitched, surprised.

He quickly smoothed out his expression and when he turned she was looking at him with both eyebrows up. Lance laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, sorry. I was just…you know…doing…acrobatics. Yeah. They are good for your heart and all that health stuff.”

Nyma didn’t look impressed, and Lance desperately thought of a way to change the conversation.

“So… what do you think if we buy lunch and then go eat it outside?” he suggested. Hey. That was good. Really good. If they did that, they would avoid the food-fight, for sure. Brightening, he added, “It’s a beautiful day!”

After a moment, Nyma’s face relaxed and even though she didn’t seem completely convinced, she agreed anyway.

Later, Lance heard from Hunk and Pidge that they had a blast during lunch, but he was too busy celebrating that he had scored a _true_ date for the next day to think too much about it.

In his excitement, he insisted that they needed to celebrate his success by going to sing karaoke after school. They spent five of what Lance had tentatively started calling “Lance-hours” in there, before he grew bored of the repetition and decided that he might as well go buy the milk his mom had asked for before going back home.

He remembered the butter his mother hadn’t asked for in this timeline, and bought that too. It earned him a sincere thank you and a kiss on the cheek for being so thoughtful.

There was no accident, this time—of course it wouldn’t be. It wasn’t supposed to happen for another two hours after he arrived home. Lance couldn’t stop marveling over the fact that he should have been in detention right now, but thanks to his mysterious power, he was at home instead. Early, even after five hours of karaoke.

That night, he went to sleep with a smile on his face, his heart light. The day had turned out to be one of the best of his life, and tomorrow he had a date!

Nothing could bring him down, now.

 

* * *

 

Lance barged into Allura’s bookstore with a giant smile and a cheerful hello to the man behind the desk.

“Well, good morning to you too, Lance! Aren’t you cheerful today?” Coran said in his usual bright manner.

“I have a date today, Coran, my man!”

“Ohoho, young love! How wonderful!” He clapped his hands once and then eyed curiously the bright yellow bag that Lance was carrying. “What do you have there?”

“A housewarming gift from Ma,” Lance explained, carefully putting it down on the desk. “She said it’s fragile. Is Allura in?”

Coran stopped inspecting the present and looked at him. “She is! I’ll take this to the back and fetch her for you, what do you say?”

“That’s perfect. Thank you, Coran.”

It had been a struggle, deciding whether he should tell Allura about his powers again, now that he readily believed in them. This version of his cousin didn’t know about it, and he wasn’t so sure if telling her would be the best line of action, but he had decided to tell her everything in the end—including his last visit—because he trusted her. He might even learn something this time, now that he was eager to listen.

“...and I re-did everything, Allura. I swear, I don’t know how I do it, but it’s the best thing that’s happened to me ever.”

Allura hummed. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, however, and Lance’s own shrunk.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Not wrong, per se, it’s just...” She clicked her tongue.

“What?”

“Lance, it’s wonderful that you have managed to make things better for you, but…have you thought about what this means for other people? What if your misfortune gets redirected to them, now that you can avoid it every time you want to?”

“What?” Lance exclaimed, aghast. He shook his head violently and frowned. “Allura, that’s… that’s silly. Bad things were happening to _me,_ not others. And. And even if I _did_ make things worse, I can just jump back and change them again, easy-peasy.” He shrugged.

Allura didn’t seem much convinced. “I don’t know, Lance. It sounds dangerous. And a little bit selfish, won’t you agree?”

Lance had to bit his tongue to keep in the sharp, defensive retort that had immediately sprung to mind. It was true, even if he didn’t like it. Using his powers as he was…he was being a bit selfish. He had known that long before he had consciously tried it.

“...maybe,” he grudgingly conceded.

“Oh, Lance. I’m not telling you to stop. Just—be careful, please?”

Lance sighed. “Okay,” he said, reluctantly. “Okay, I will. I’ll stop abusing it, too. I’ll just use it if there’s an emergency, from now on.”

Allura beamed, and he knew he had done the right thing.

 

* * *

 

After visiting his cousin, Lance went back home. He had lunch with his family and at three, he started getting ready for his date. He showered, dressed nicely, did his hair and then checked that he had enough money in his wallet to buy some nice things in case it was needed.

His big brother teased him a bit when Lance hurried outside, but Lance was not affected. He was way too happy to answer with anything but a “at least I’m not a loser who stays at home all day on the weekend!” and a rude gesture. He was still sniggering at Dan’s outrage as he approached the place where Nyma had agreed to meet him.

(She had given him her number just for that, and Lance may or may not have saved it with a lot of tiny little hearts around her contact name, he had been so deliriously happy.)

He only had to wait fifteen minutes before she showed up, and then he asked her where she wanted to go. Lance had thought long and hard about it the night before, and had finally decided that as it really didn’t matter to him, he would be happy to let Nyma decide.

They ended up going to the movies and then to get ice-cream, and Lance could not stop smiling like a loon for the entirety of it.

Nyma was an angel and he was so smitten. He couldn’t believe he was this lucky.

But of course, the other shoe had to drop and break his heart.

Lance had to go to the bathroom, so he excused himself and left Nyma alone in the booth. He hurried through everything so that he’d be able to go back to her quickly, so much so that he didn’t stop to dry his hands properly. He hummed under his breath as he walked back, smiling at a little kid who was enthusiastically waving at him.

Then he froze. There was a guy sitting on his seat in front of Nyma.

He frowned in confusion, and then he scowled when he saw this stranger leer at her. Lance couldn’t see her reaction as she was facing the other way, but he was incensed in her behalf. What was this dude thinking, bothering Lance’s date like that?

He clenched his jaw and started walking purposefully towards them, ready to tell the asshole off, but before he could even open his mouth he caught part of the conversation and the words died in his throat.

“...he buys me nice things and he’s nice enough, unlike you, Rolo.”

The man huffed out a mocking laugh. “Oh, please. I feel bad for the poor sod. What are you going to do, suck him dry and dump him the moment he doesn’t have any more money? He’s just a high-schooler, after all. His funds will stop coming sooner rather than later.”

“Well, you haven’t taken me out lately, and I’m also a high-schooler without funds, you know? How am I supposed to buy anything I want when you’ve been ignoring me for days?”

Lance felt like someone had emptied a bucket of ice on him. His eyes grew wide and a soft gasp escaped before he could stop it. The dude’s eyes snapped up away from Nyma and fell on Lance. He smiled lazily. “Oh, are you the poor sod that was caught in this harpy’s scheme?” he asked unconcernedly, completely ignoring the fact that Lance’s heart was breaking into tiny little pieces. Nyma turned around, then, eyes wide with surprise. “Sorry, man.”

Nyma’s surprise disappeared; her face turned blank for a moment before she smiled wryly. “Damn,” she said, pushing some of her braids off her shoulder. There was no shadow of remorse on her face, words, or eyes. It felt like a punch to the stomach. “I guess I won’t be able to convince you to buy me that little bracelet I wanted.”

Lance’s eyes filled with tears, but the sudden rage bubbling up inside him kept them at bay.

“No,” he spat, stomping to the booth and snatching his jacket from the place he had left it, smacking the dude’s face with it in the process. It didn’t bring him any kind of satisfaction, though. He was too hurt for that. “No, you won’t. Go to hell, Nyma.”

He turned and left, shoving the door open with maybe too much force. In his haste to get away, however, he knocked shoulders with someone and almost fell. He glared at the person and then cursed his luck when he recognized who it was.

Fucking Keith was glaring right back at him.

Oh, could things get even worse?

“Look where you’re going,” Keith snapped at him, and then his frown became more pronounced. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Fine, excellent. Never been better, mullet boy,” he snarled, crossing his arms over his chest. The other boy scowled at him darkly.

“Fuck you, you don’t need to be so rude.”

Lance scoffed. “Speak for yourself. Argh, I can’t deal with this right now. I’m outta here.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Lance stomped away spitting curses under his breath. He was not just angry with Nyma; he was also angry at himself. Pidge had tried to tell him, hadn’t she? Why hadn’t he listened?

He had thought his luck was changing. He had thought she was honestly interested in him, not...not his _money,_ what the actual fuck?

He had been so, so stupid. Why had he spent so much on her, why…?

His eyes narrowed. Why, indeed? Lance had already used that money, but he could just as easily get it back.

He just needed a little jump.

 

* * *

 

When Lance landed again, he rolled once and sprang to his feet. He looked around as he brushed lint off his shoulder, and scowled when his eyes stopped on the place Nyma had first approached him from. He sniffed, pointedly turned away, and walked off.

He was still too angry and hurt to feel any kind of satisfaction from imagining Nyma’s outrage at being left to wait for him indefinitely. He was also still feeling too vulnerable to go back home, especially after mouthing off to Dan. Lance really, really didn’t want to deal with the teasing that was bound to come up, even if his brother wouldn’t do it to purposefully hurt him.

Maybe he could go to Hunk’s.

Lance’s steps shortened as he thought about it, and then he resumed walking with purpose while taking out his phone.

Yes, his best friend was his best option. Hunk wouldn’t turn him away, wouldn’t make fun of him, and he would provide the kind of company that Lance craved at the moment. Still, he should call and check it was okay for him to come over.

He waited for a few tones, and then Hunk’s voice answered, “Hey man, what’s up?”

“Can I drop by?” Lance asked immediately.

Even though he had tried his best to make his voice sound even, something must have tipped Hunk off, because his tone changed. “Sure, man. Do you want cookies? I can bake you some.”

Lance smiled softly despite himself. Trust Hunk to know exactly what he needed.

“Thank you, buddy.”

“Nah, no problem. Let yourself in when you come.”

Lance cut off the call and continued on his way, feeling just a little less angry, and a little less sad.

 

* * *

 

As predicted, Hunk didn’t comment on Lance’s state. He simply provided him with homemade comfort cookies and let Lance wallow in peace on his couch. He even made him hot cocoa and distracted him with little stories about his mechanic class and his siblings, making Lance laugh and forget his sadness.

When it was time to say goodbye for the night, he was feeling a lot better.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna stay?” his friend asked at the door, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “It’s pretty late, and you know you’re always welcome here, right?”

“Nah, I’m fine. Thanks, though.”

Hunk pursed his lips, then lifted up a finger. “Wait here for a sec.”

Lance blinked at his best friend’s back, surprised at his quick departure. What…? Before he could question it, Hunk was back with an electric blue scarf in his hands. “Here, put this on. It’s really cold outside.”

Huffing out an amused laugh, Lance accepted Hunk’s scarf and put it around his neck. It was soft and warm, and Lance just knew he would never give it back. _Mine, now._ “Thanks, bud. See you later.”

“Be careful.”

“Yeah, I will.”

The door closed and Lance stepped onto the sidewalk. He sighed and huddled up a bit, burrowing the bottom of his face in the warm scarf. The air was crisp and chilly, and the only sources of light were the street lamps and the occasional passing car.

Lance lived close, so he leisurely walked back while trying to come up with an excuse that would let him get out of talking about his disaster of a date. He yawned as he turned the corner, and then shivered.

A screech of tires behind him; the dull sound of a door opening too close for comfort. Lance turned, heart in his throat, all his senses suddenly gone haywire. Fingers closed like a vice grip around his bicep; he was being pulled towards a car—a SUV? Lance couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, but his instincts screeched at him to react, to defend himself, and so he fought.

He turned and tried to elbow his assailant, then kicked out with his opposite leg. The grip loosened enough for him to yank his arm free, and Lance started running. Eyes blown wide and breathing harshly, he ran as fast as he could. There was a loud swear behind him, but Lance didn’t stop to look. It turned out for the best, because his assailant promptly gave chase, and—no. Those were more that one pair of feet. There was more than one of them!

Fuck.

This couldn’t be happening. No way, no way, no way—

His jacket was seized from behind and Lance stumbled. His panic rose, his vision tunneled.

No.

He struggled and kicked, and he must have hit, because the one holding him down hissed in pain before he roughly pushed him to the ground.

Bile rose in his throat. He closed his eyes.

And he fell.

A splash of cold water and a struggle for air, and Lance broke out of the surface to breathe. It was not enough, not enough, _not enough—_

“Oh my god!” someone screamed. “He jumped!”

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro appears in this chapter! And there's a lot of Keith! :D

“Is he okay?”

“That boy jumped!”

“Is he crazy?”

Lance heard them, but didn’t pay attention. The voices were too loud, too senseless. He was still too busy trying to figure out what happened, trying to breathe.

This had been an accident, like the first time he traveled. He had panicked—he had been almost _kidnapped!_ —and then—

Then he had leaped unconsciously. Had he undone the whole new timeline? This was the bridge. He had jumped, he had gone back. What day was it? _What happened?_

He should go to the riverside. He should go home. There, surely, he would figure it out. But his body wasn’t reacting. Wasn’t listening to him. It didn’t want to move. He was barely keeping himself afloat, and he couldn’t even feel the water that must have been freezing. He felt numb.

Then someone touched his shoulder, barely a brush of fingers, but enough to snap him out of his thoughts. Lance shivered violently and blinked, trying to focus on the blurry form of the person right in front of him. Were they talking to him?

“...ddy, c’mon, bud. Are you alright?” The voice was soft and worried, probably belonging to a man. Lance’s eyes weren’t cooperating, however, and he couldn’t be sure. “We need to go to land, and I want to help you, but for that I need to touch you, is that okay?”

Lance nodded, and docilely let the stranger pull him towards the riverside. He probably didn’t make it easy for them, however, as his limbs were numb and heavy as lead, and he didn’t quite remember how were they supposed to work.

They were helped out of the water by more faceless people, who continued asking questions upon questions upon questions, talking over each other, crowding into Lance’s space and suddenly Lance couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, _couldn’t breath—_

“Back off,” barked a voice that was strangely familiar. “The boy’s in shock, let him breathe! He needs space, move!”

Shock? Was that it? This heavy, burning sensation in his chest, the way in which his eyes didn’t seem to be able to work properly, the way his ears picked every sound as if he still was underwater?

“...breathe, breathe with me, bud. Hey, can you hear me? Breathe. In, out, with me. Yes. Just like that. Again.”

Lance struggled to follow the calm voice’s indications, and soon the world started making sense again. His vision cleared, his ears unclogged, his heartbeat calmed down and synchronized with his slow, deep breathing. Blinking twice to get rid of the tears that had gathered in the corner of his eyes, Lance finally got a good look at his rescuer’s face.

The young man was frowning, obviously worried. His hair was black except for a tuft of white on the front, and he had kind, dark eyes. A long, pink scar crossed over the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t touching Lance, though his hand hovered near his shoulder.

“There you go. Welcome back.” The guy gave Lance a soft, reassuring smile when he noticed that Lance had calmed down. Lance tried to smile back, but was unsuccessful. His face was too stiff. The guy frowned. “Hey, do you want me to take you home? Or is there someone I can call to pick you up? I should take you to the hospital...”

Lance startled at that, and shook his head vigorously—or as vigorously as he could, considering the circumstances.

His eyes were wide. “No, please. I—”

He wasn’t counting on his throat feeling so dry; his outburst triggered a coughing fit. Apparently, that was the signal his body needed to restart the processing of feelings and sensations.

His soaked clothes plastered to his cold skin; the freezing droplets falling from his hair; the wet, muddy earth beneath his fingers and the knowledge that it’d be a pain to wash it out of his pants… he became aware of everything at the same time, and it was overwhelming. He shivered, teeth chattering. He was cold to the bone.

“Whoa, there. Easy. I won’t contact anybody if you don’t want me to, but you can’t stay like this, you’ll catch a cold.”

Lance raised his head and regarded the other man, and it was only then that he realized that he wasn’t the only one soaking wet.

“Oh, man, you too!” The guilt was sudden, heavy and crushing. It was his fault, after all. “I’m so sorry!”

The guy made a dismissive gesture with his hand and smiled lopsidedly. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” The smile dropped as he hesitated, looking around. A frown wrinkled his brow.

Confused, Lance imitated him and then cringed as he realized that they were not as alone as he had thought. How could he forget that there were other people there? They had helped them out of the river!

The crowd was rather small, but their gazes were fixed on them, filled with morbid curiosity, and their murmuring behind their hands was making Lance’s breath become shallow once again.

The young man that saved him turned sharply back to him, and swore. He pushed himself to his feet and offered his hand to Lance, then helped him stand. “Okay, I know a place we can go,” he said, putting himself between Lance and the gaggle of people. “It’s a family restaurant just around the corner. I’m sure they’ll lend us some towels to get you dry. That okay with you? I’m Takashi, by the way.”

Lance nodded, not trusting his voice. He was glad that Takashi was making himself a bluffer and keeping Lance distracted. However, when they started walking up the slope, Lance froze.

Takashi turned around, eyes questioning. “What’s the matter?”

Lance cleared his throat and said, “I left my things over there.” He pointed towards the little nook where he remembered he had originally hidden his possessions. “My phone and…and my jacket.”

The inquiring expression cleared, giving way to a shine of understanding, and Takashi followed Lance’s finger with his eyes before turning back to Lance and regarding him calculatingly.

“If I go take them back, you’ll be fine here?”

Lance huffed. “I’m fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. Yeah, he was still a bit shaken, but the worst of it had already worn off. For the moment, at least. “I won’t keel over and die if you leave me for a second, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Takashi hummed, clearly unconvinced, lips pressed tightly together. Lance rolled his eyes again and scowled. He shook off Takashi’s grip and shooed him away, before crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest.

“Go. Or I’m going. You decide.”

Takashi’s face twitched in a way that suggested he was torn between laughing and being offended, but he stopped objecting. He trotted to retrieve Lance’s possession and was back almost immediately. He was fast.

Lance was baffled when, instead of giving Lance his jacket as he had been expecting, Takashi kept it. The confusion must have been obvious on his face, because Takashi looked from Lance to the jacket, and then to Lance again, smiling apologetically.

“It’s better if we dry you off a bit before putting this back on,” he explained, raising the arm with the jacket. “So that it doesn’t get too wet, and you actually have something dry and warm to wear.”

“Oh.” It made sense. “Okay.”

“Let’s hurry up, then.”

Not seeing anything wrong with that, Lance agreed.

 

* * *

 

As Takashi said, the restaurant was about two blocks away from the bridge. They walked quickly towards it, and Lance was just glad that the sun was out. It was the only thing that kept him from freezing. So when Takashi opened the door and they were greeted by a current of warmth, Lance relaxed in bliss. The delicious smells floating in the air helped, too, and made his stomach grumble in appreciation.

“Welcome to… Oh, my goodness, Shiro! What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into, this time?” A pretty middle-aged woman scowled playfully at them, one hand on her waist. Lance frowned. Who the hell was Shiro?

“Hi, Mary.” Takashi smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t holding Lance’s jacket. Oh. Takashi was Shiro? Was it a nickname? “We had a little accident. Would you be so kind to lend us some towels?”

Mary the waitress sighed, shaking her head, but her disapproval was belied by her soft, fond smile.

“Yeah, yeah. Come with me,” she ordered. They followed her behind the counter and towards the back, where the employees stored their things. “You and your brother, always getting in trouble,” she grumbled as she rummaged in a cabinet. From there she produced two green towels. “Honestly,” she continued while giving one to Takashi and the other to Lance, “you’d expect better from a cop, wouldn’t you? But this man right here?” She shook her head in mock censure.

“Now, now, Mary. You’ll make me look bad.”

She snorted. “You don’t need me to make you look bad, you do that yourself well enough.”

“You hurt my feelings.”

Lance looked on bemusedly as the two continued bickering, and soon couldn’t resist the smile. It was obvious that they had known each other for years and were good friends, even with the age difference.

“Bah, stop talking already and take your friend to a table. I’ll get you both a coffee to warm you up.”

Lance blinked, surprised, but before he could politely decline the offer, Takashi answered, “Thank you, Mary.”

Mary clucked her tongue and waved his gratitude away. “You’ve been coming here for years, so it’s not like I’m doing this from the goodness of my heart. I just don’t want to lose good clientele.” She sniffed, and Takashi chuckled.

“Whatever you say,” he replied, looking back to Lance and pointing with his head towards the door. “We’ll let you work, then.”

“You’d better! Shoo, shoo!”

They were chased out of the back towards the main part of the restaurant between laughs, and then Takashi guided him to a table.

“So, Shiro?” Lance raised an eyebrow as he sat.

Takashi blinked in confusion and then frowned, but after a moment his expression cleared. He coughed, then smiled sheepishly. “Ah, yeah. That’s—It’s short for ‘Shirogane,’ my last name,” he explained. “It’s also the name my brother came up with when he was little, and so it stuck. You can use it, if you want.”

“Oh.” Lance leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, Mary mentioned you had a brother.”

Shiro hummed, shifting his weight and rolling up his cuffs. A metal shine caught Lance’s attention, and he dropped his eyes to the previously unnoticed prosthesis. He blinked once, surprised, but then Shiro spoke and Lance’s attention went back to his words. “Yeah, Keith. He’s actually about your—”

“There you are!” an angry voice interrupted, making Lance jolt in surprise. “For fuck’s sake, Shiro! I’ve been waiting outside forever and you were...”

Wait a second. Lance knew that voice.

Keith… he didn’t mean _that_ Keith, surely?

He turned brusquely in his seat to see the owner of the voice, and his eyes grew wide when he found that, indeed, it was _that_ Keith who was standing there, looking awkward and rather confused.

“...um. Hi?” Keith said, and Lance gaped.

“What the heck are you doing here?!”

Keith scowled, looking from Lance to Shiro and back to Lance, then crossed his arms over his chest. “I could ask you the same, Lance.”

Lance was further surprised at the use of his first name, because he wasn’t aware that the other boy even knew it. Heck, half the time he wasn’t sure Keith knew he _existed._ The kind of rivalry that Lance stubbornly proclaimed between them had actually been always one-sided, if he was being honest.

“Do you two know each other?” Shiro’s tone was full of surprise. His eyebrows were high on his forehead.

“Yeah, from school,” Keith answered distractedly. He frowned. “How do _you_ guys know each other?”

“Ah, well. That is kind of complicated...” Shiro had to cut himself off when Mary came with their coffees and then proceeded to greet Keith and inform him of just how Shiro and Lance had entered her ‘fine establishment’.

The scowl directed at both of them when Mary left them alone was so powerful that Lance actually felt intimidated.

“You,” the boy hissed, “are going to drink that coffee and get ready to go home. I’m gonna buy lunch and we’re getting out of here, and getting you two dry clothes. Understood?”

Lance nodded quickly, without hesitation. Keith huffed before turning and walking towards the counter. It was then that Lance stopped nodding and realized what had just happened. His mouth dropped and his brow crinkled in outrage. What? What gave Keith the right to boss him around? And…why had he just accepted it? Was it the glare? Was he sick?! Lance must be sick, he must have caught something already. There was no way he would have accepted an order from Keith Kogane without even attempting to protest, otherwise.

A chuckle from the other side of the table startled him into looking back at Shiro. He seemed way too amused for Lance’s liking. He scowled.

“Sorry, is just...” Shiro shook his head and lifted his mug to take a sip of his coffee. It reminded Lance of his own, and he quickly put his freezing hands around the hot ceramic, letting it warm them a bit. “Keith be a little...anyway. You should do what he says, this time. I was actually going to suggest something similar, though more along the lines of letting me accompany you home, because inviting you to mine would have been weird as we didn’t know each other at all,” he said, before taking another sip. “But if you two know each other, then I guess it’s fine.” He frowned and put the mug down. “Unless you _want_ me to accompany you home?”

Lance tapped the mug with one finger as he thought, but then shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll go with you.”

He wasn’t up to going back home just yet. It was on his way there that he had been almost kidnapped, after all.

 

* * *

 

Keith was the first one to enter the apartment, not even glancing back once as he hurried inside. Shiro smiled at Lance and let him pass next.

He looked around curiously as Shiro closed the door behind them, feeling a little bit awkward.

“Ah, sorry it’s a little messy,” Shiro said, taking off his shoes and putting them on the shelf to the side of the door that Lance had not seen before. He was now glad that he had decided to wait instead of going deeper inside, because he wouldn’t have thought about taking his own off. He followed Shiro’s example and removed his sneakers, furrowing his nose in distaste as that revealed sodden socks. “Neither of us are really tidy.”

Lance scowled at his socks and took them off, too. He shrugged. “Don’t sweat it, man. I live with four children. This is nothing.”

“You have four siblings?” Keith asked as he came back with two towels, considerably bigger and fluffier than the ones they had used at the restaurant, and an empty laundry hamper.

Lance accepted his towel gratefully and put it on his shoulders, around his neck. “Nope, I have five. Two older, three younger.”

“Put that here.” Keith offered the hamper and Lance put his wet socks inside. Shiro did the same, though he had also taken off his shirt. Lance tried not to focus too much on the expanse of scar-ridden skin now exposed, or on the prosthetic arm. Or the muscles. Nope, Lance. Not going there. “But you mentioned four children?”

“Yeah.” Lance laughed. “One of those is actually my niece.”

Keith’s eyes grew wide.

“That’s a lot of people,” Shiro commented as he dried his hair with the towel. “It sounds like fun.”

“It is. They can be a pain in the ass, though.”

Shiro chuckled. “Yeah, I can imagine. I’m gonna change. Lend Lance some clothes, yeah?” he said to Keith, who blinked and then straightened his back, perching the hamper on his hip and nodding.

“Yeah, okay.” He turned to Lance. “Um, follow me?”

Lance mock-saluted. “Lead the way!”

Keith rolled his eyes, but Lance was pretty sure that he saw a hint of a smile before he turned and walked away. Lance followed the boy to his room, all the way thinking how incredibly impossible this whole situation was. Who would have thought that, out of all the possible outcomes of his almost kidnapping, it would take him to Keith’s home?

Keith pushed a door open and invited Lance in, before carelessly dropping the hamper to the floor and going over to his wardrobe.

Lance gave the room a once-over, not knowing if he felt disappointed that it wasn’t that much different from his, or impressed at the sheer number of posters of space on the walls.

“Here, these should fit you.”

On the bed, Keith had laid a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, plus a pair of socks.

“Ah, thanks,” Lance said, feeling rather awkward. “Uh.”

“I’m gonna…let you change,” Keith said, walking out of the room. “Just…drop your wet clothes on the hamper after…yeah.”

The door closed and Lance looked at it for a moment, then shrugged.

He took off his t-shirt and put it in the hamper, then quickly dried himself off and put on Keith’s. It was black, a little bit wide on the shoulders, but it fit. Then he unbuttoned his jeans, but stopped before pulling them off. He frowned at the clothes on the bed. What was he supposed to do with his boxers? He couldn’t… He flushed. He couldn’t put on underwear that wasn’t his, but he also couldn’t just go commando in another person’s jeans!

He worried his lip as he thought, and after a moment he decided that he might as well just keep his own boxers on. He would just…try to dry them a bit before putting on the jeans. So he took off his own and dumped them in the hamper, then tied the towel around his waist, figuring that it would only help to absorb the water.

His feet were cold, so his next step was to put on the socks. He laughed when he noticed the pattern. Really, Keith? Golden snitches? Who would have thought he was such a nerd!

He stopped moving, eyes growing wide as he realized the opportunity that had just been presented to him.

Balancing on the balls of his feet, he hesitated for a moment, but curiosity finally won over the little voice that told him that it was a bad idea.

… A little snooping wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?

It was not like he was trying to discover something really private. That would be completely uncool. Lance only wanted to...get to know the other boy a bit. He had been nothing like Lance had expected him to be, and now he was curious, because to be completely honest, Lance didn’t know anything about Keith, not really. That he was a star pupil, sure. That he had the best exam results of their year. That he was always scowling and moody and alone, at least when Lance saw him. And that he didn’t care a bit for his hair, because. Mullet. Enough said. But nothing really important, nothing that told him ‘ _this is who Keith_ is’ _._

Lance felt a little bit silly, now, to have written him off before getting to know him, but maybe he could learn something more about him by looking around in his room.

Other than the bed and the wardrobe, the only big piece of furniture was a desk. It was covered in papers, among them the sheets of homework that Lance was relieved to notice hadn’t been started yet, like his own. There were also a couple of magazines about motorbikes, and a pile of old CDs. Lance opened the first drawer and found a half-finished bag of chips and more school materials, and promptly closed it before opening the second one. He frowned and carefully took the folder inside. Music sheets? Handwritten. He squinted to make out the name scribbled on the top of the page.

His breath caught, and he quickly but carefully put them back in their place.

He might not know a lot about Keith Kogane, but there was one thing he knew for sure: both his parents had passed away.

Handwritten music sheets belonging to Keith’s mother? Yeah, that was the kind of thing that Lance considered to be invaluable treasures, and he felt kind of terrible for intruding.

He discarded the towel and struggled a bit with the borrowed jeans, which were a bit short for his legs, but he wasn’t about to complain. When he was finally dressed, he hurried out of the room, hoping that the feeling of guilt would go away now that he was putting distance between himself and that second drawer.

Absorbed as he was in his own thoughts, he didn’t realize that his hosts were talking about him until he was almost in the living room with them.

“...you sure?”

“Yes. Pretty much.”

“But...it’s Lance. It doesn’t make sense!”

“You know well that it doesn’t need to ‘make sense,’ kiddo. He jumped from that bridge, Keith, and his reaction after that...well, it just makes my suspicions worse.”

Lance gasped softly, eyes growing wide as he heard them. He…he had been too worried thinking about other things to even think about how the whole situation would look to another person, but now that he did, he realized all too well.

He knocked and put on a smile, pretending that he had just arrived and hadn’t heard a thing.

“Hey! Thank you, seriously. What do you want me to do with my clothes?”

“Did you put them in the hamper?” Keith asked, and there was something on his face that Lance couldn’t quite put a name on.

“Yeah.”

“Then sit down,” Shiro said, pushing himself to his feet and stretching. “I’ll put them on the drier while we eat.”

“Nah, that’s all right. Just gimme a plastic back or something and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“What? No,” Keith said sharply. Lance’s eyebrows rose in mild confusion. Keith scowled. “I already bought food for three, and it’s way past noon. Sit your ass down and eat with us, or I’ll make you.”

“O...kay?” Lance blinked and sat down, and Keith nodded, satisfied.

“Your jacket is over there. I’ll bring the food.”

Lance’s eyes followed the boy as he retreated, presumably to the kitchen, feeling rather put off and confused. He was inviting Lance to stay, so why the heck did he have to be so rude? Lance didn’t know whether he should be grateful or offended.

Shiro chuckled and passed Lance his jacket before walking out of the room, distracting him. Lance sputtered and then huffed, rolling his eyes and taking out his phone to check for messages. There was nothing important so he simply blocked the screen and put it back in his pocket.

Keith came back before Shiro, carrying a pile of plates and cutlery on one hand, and balancing three glasses on the other. Lance jumped to his feet and quickly took the plates from him.

“I could have done that,” Keith protested. “I’m a waiter, I can carry things,” he added, rather drily, while setting the glasses down on the table. Lance’s eye twitched, but before he could snap, Keith added, softly, “but..thanks.”

Lance grumbled, appeased.

“Need help with anything else?” he offered, because _unlike someone,_ Lance did have manners, thank you.

“Nah, sit. I’ll be right back with the food.”

Lance figured that he might as well set the table properly, so he separated the utensils in groups of three and then sat back on the same spot he had been sitting before. Shiro came back just then, and smiled at Lance as he took a seat in front of him, mirroring their position back in the restaurant.

“So, you go to the Garrison, too?”

“Yeah. Um, a different class than Keith, though.”

“I was wondering...are you by chance the same Lance Keith’s been complaining about all day yesterday?”

“Eh?”

“Shiro!” Keith hissed as he came back with the food, stomping his way to the table. “Shut up!”

“What? Is he?”

“Am I what?”

“The one that shared his detention after an ‘incredible food-fight’, was ‘really weird, Shiro, I swear’ during said detention, and then ‘didn’t even look at me when he ran off, the ass’?”

“Shiro!”

Lance gaped. Because. What?

Whaaat?

“I don’t sound like that!” Keith scowled darkly and cuffed his brother on the back of the head. “He’s lying, don’t listen to him. I didn’t say that.”

“Oooh, so he is!”

“No. Yes. Argh, drop it, Shiro!”

Shiro laughed, a deep, happy sound that only made Keith’s scowl more pronounced. And was Keith blushing? Lance grinned.

“Aww, did you want to talk to me? I’m sorry I didn’t notice,” he cooed, and when Keith’s scowl turned to him, he lost it and joined Shiro in his laughter.

“I hate you both,” Keith growled, sitting down and attacking the food.

Lance kept laughing.

 

* * *

 

He was having a great time. The food was delicious and he hadn’t felt so entertained watching other people interact in a long time. Shiro was funny and dry and sarcastic, and was apparently a cop. Keith was surprisingly straight-forward and honest, and had some trouble understanding puns and jokes, but he tried earnestly anyway. Lance found that strangely adorable.

Not once did Lance feel like he was unwanted there, even when the two brothers discussed things that Lance didn’t have a hope of understanding. When they realized, though, they either explained it to him or changed the subject, and that made Lance feel warm and welcome.

He was laughing at something Keith had said to Shiro when his phone vibrated in his pocket and started blasting Beyoncé. He quickly dug it out and ignored both looks of incredulity as he checked who it was. It was his mother, so he answered.

“Ma?”

“Lance!” She sounded both worried and relieved, and Lance straightened in his chair. “Where are you? I just called Allura and she told me you left Altea before noon, and it’s already three thirty! Is everything okay?”

“What?!” Lance’s eyes grew wide as he processed this information. “Is it that late already?” He looked at his companions and saw them check their phones with similar expressions of surprise.

“What do you mean, it’s that late already? Where are you?”

“Sorry, Ma. I’m just… I met a classmate on the way back and we had lunch, and I didn’t notice the time pass.”

His mother sighed loudly. “Well, that’s fine. You could have told me, though.”

Lance cringed. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m coming back now.”

“You don’t have to. Have fun.”

“No, really. I’ve already imposed for too long, so… I’m walking back, so I’ll be there in a few.”

“Okay, okay. If you’re sure.”

“Yeah. Love you, Ma.”

He hung up and sighed.

“Your mom?” Shiro ventured.

“Yeah. She was worried ‘bout me. I forgot to tell her I’d be back late.”

“I gathered as much,” Shiro said, exchanging a look with Keith. “So you’re going back?”

Lance combed his hair back with his hand, absently realizing that it was completely dry. Time had really passed, huh? He wasn’t really sure when. “Yeah, I should.”

“That’s okay. Keith will go with you.”

“Huh?”

“What?”

Lance turned to look at Keith, who was staring at Shiro with surprise. So he wasn’t the only one?

“You had to go to the shop, didn’t you?” Shiro smiled, closing his eyes, and the expression was vaguely threatening. Lance couldn’t understand how.

Keith blinked, and then his face brightened in realization. “Oh, yeah! I have to buy...cereal. Yeah, we’re out of cereal. So. Yeah, I’ll walk with you.”

Lance looked from one brother to the other with an eyebrow raised, then snorted, amused. It was more than obvious that they were lying through their teeth, but Lance guessed it had something to do with the conversation he had overheard, so he didn’t say anything.

“Okay, cool.”

“Your clothes must be dry already. I’ll go fetch them.” Shiro got to his feet and hurried out of the room while Lance helped Keith to carry the dirty dishes to the kitchen.

When they came back, Shiro was already at the entrance, waiting for them. Lance put on his jacket and his now not-so-wet sneakers, and then accepted the bag Shiro held out to him, which contained his dry clothes.

Keith had put on a red coat and a black scarf, and offered Lance a grey one. Lance felt a pang of regret for the lost electric blue one Hunk had given him in the other timeline, and made a mental note of trying to get it back as he put on this new one. It was also warm and comfy. Perhaps he’ll...conveniently forget to give it back.

“Thanks,” he said to both of them.

“There’s no trouble.” Shiro smiled warmly. “Come again sometime.”

“Uh, sure,” he answered, though he wasn’t so sure about that. He would like to, however, which was kind of a wild concept. “Bye, Shiro.”

“Goodbye, Lance.”

Keith huffed. “C’mon, let’s go.”

They walked down the two flight of stairs that separated the apartment from the street, and were soon back in the chilly air of the Saturday afternoon.

Lance huddled in his coat and hid his face behind his borrowed scarf. Two scarves the same day, from different people. More or less. The situation was too messed up, too confusing.

“You can, you know.”

Lance jolted. “What?”

“Visit us again.” Keith shrugged. He wasn’t looking at Lance, though. His eyes were firmly looking ahead. “We don’t mind. I don’t mind. I like you.”

Lance stopped dead and _stared._ “What?”

Keith frowned, also stopping. For a moment, he looked puzzled, until his eyes grew wide and he blushed. Blushed!

“Ah, not—not like that—That’s not what I—I mean. I—” He covered his face with his hands and made a strangled noise in the back of his throat before composing himself. He then looked at Lance, squarely in the eye and very serious, even though there was still red coloring his cheeks. “You’re a great person, okay? I—I don’t really know much about you, but you’re funny and smart and… you have friends, they seem great. And your mom worries about you, and from what you’ve said about your family, they love you a lot. So, yeah. What I’m trying to say is that, um… your life is important. Okay? Don’t...” He looked away for a moment, gulped, then went back to pinning Lance down with his eyes. “Don’t throw it away.”

Lance forgot how to breathe.

That was not what he was expecting, but it made his heart constrict in a mix of happiness and gratitude. Even if Keith had things wrong, what he said meant a lot more to Lance than what he was capable of expressing.

A solitary tear escaped from the corner of his eye, and Lance wiped it away with a hand, letting out a soft laugh.

“Thank you, Keith. Honest.” He adjusted the scarf around his neck and changed his grip on the bag. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to kill myself back there, though. I swear.”

Keith frowned. “Shiro told me you jumped. From a bridge.”

Lance cringed. “Um, yeah. I did. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t that, okay?”

The pursed lips were a clear sign that Keith didn’t quite believe him, but he dropped the subject and they resumed walking. The silence was comfortable, something that Lance didn’t think was possible, and soon they were standing in front of Lance’s door. Apparently, they lived quite close to each other, which made Lance wonder how come they hadn’t crossed paths more before this. Probably because Lance walked, and Keith had a bike.

“Uh, I guess I’ll see you at school, then,” Keith said, rather awkwardly.

“Yeah. I’ll give you back your things then.”

“Yeah.” Keith shifted his weight from foot to foot, opened his mouth, and then hesitated for a moment. “Yeah. Goodbye, Lance,” he said finally, sharply turning back and walking away.

“Keith!” Lance called, before the boy could get too far.

Keith stopped and half-turned, waiting.

“Thank you, again. And… I think you’re pretty cool, yourself.”

Lance could swear Keith blushed again before turning completely away, practically running back in the direction they had come from.

Lance chuckled, feeling content and rather fond despite himself. “The store is the other way, you dork,” he muttered to nobody in particular as he opened the door and entered his house.

He laughed a little more as he closed it, just missing the car that slowly drove past.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whohoo! This is the last one of the rewritten chapters. Next will be completely new!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completely new material! Hope you enjoy! <3

On Monday, Lance got to school with three minutes to spare. It was quite an accomplishment, if he did say so himself.

“Whoa, you’re early today,” Hunk said, looking up from his book. Lance peered and found lots of mathematical equations and diagrams that didn’t make a lick of sense to him, and he concluded it had to be from Hunk’s advanced mechanics class.

“Yeah, well,” Lance shrugged one shoulder, then put down both his book bag and the one with clothes on the floor. “There’s always a first time for everything,” he joked, a bit weakly. Truth was, he didn’t feel much like laughing. Since the moment he went outside that morning, he had been on edge. A feeling of dread clung to him like a leech; he felt observed. It was the same feeling he had through Sunday, too, every time he went outside, and he hoped it was just a bit of paranoia and nothing more. It was for this reason that he had walked faster than normal to get to school.

Hunk frowned and closed his book, regarding Lance worriedly. “Hey, man. Are you okay?”

“Mmm. Fine, bud. Cool as a cucumber.” When Hunk only lifted an eyebrow, he relented. “I’m a bit tired. I may be coming down with the flu, or something.”

“Dude.” Hunk took out a medical mask from his bag, tore open the plastic covering it, and strapped it to his face. “What? Don’t look at me like that. I can’t afford to get sick right now, you know, exams and all that.”

Lance laughed. “It’s okay, bud. I get it. You do what you’ve gotta do.”

“So who’s the sick one? Are you contagious?” Pidge asked, dropping onto her seat behind Lance.

“Hi, Pidge.”

“Lance is. Flu, or something.”

“I’m not. Not yet, at least. I’m just feeling a bit under the weather,” Lance pointed out. It wasn’t entirely false, either—he wouldn’t be surprised if he did catch a cold after Saturday’s splash in the river.

“Do you think Iverson will have our test results already?”

Lance thought for a bit and groaned. Dammit. He was back in the timeline in which he hadn’t done so good. Well, at least he hadn’t been kidnapped, so it was something. “Maybe. Dunno, we’ll have to wait for next period, I guess.”

“Are you still hung up on that?”

“Nah, not really,” he said sincerely. “I did what I could. Next time I’ll do better.”

Hunk beamed, noticeable even under the mask, and put both thumbs up in appreciation. “That’s the attitude!”

His day was pretty normal after that, except the part in which he avoided interacting with Nyma at all. It was a good thing that in this timeline she was still upset with him from the disaster in Chem, because it gave him an excuse not to talk to her. Even then, his friends looked at him funny—they probably expected him to try and charm her into forgiving him or something like that, and Lance probably would have, if he hadn’t lived through the other timeline and got to see her real colors. It would be interesting to watch their reactions when they realized that Lance honestly had gotten over her.

For lunch, he took with him the bag that had Keith’s clothes. His mom had washed them while berating him for not being more careful after Lance bullshitted his way out of an explanation. “Make sure you thank that boy again,” she’d said, stubborn. “It was sweet of him to help you out.” Lance had nodded and fought out the blush that was threatening to rise on his cheeks.

He looked around once they entered the cafeteria, but didn’t see the boy he was looking for. He shrugged mentally and got on the line with his friends, half his attention on their discussion, and the other half keeping track of the doors. But it wasn’t until he sat on a table and started eating that he saw Keith enter the cafeteria, alone as always and frowning.

“Dude, why are you smiling?” Hunk said, raising an eyebrow. Lance blinked. He was smiling? Hunk craned his neck to follow Lance’s line of sight, puzzled. “Who are you looking at?”

Lance sputtered. “I’m not—what?” He shook his head.

“Hunk’s right. You were smiling that creepy, besotted smile you usually smile at pretty people,” Pidge said. She was also looking behind her. “I don’t see Nyma anywhere, so who?”

Crossing his arms, Lance scowled and gave them both his best unimpressed stare. “I do not have a creepy, besotted smile. And I definitely wasn’t smiling like that, you two are imagining things.” He sniffed and turned his head away. It was nonsense; there was no way he was looking at _Keith_ like that.

“Oooh, look who’s coming here!”

Lance frowned and did so, and then almost swallowed his tongue. Keith had spotted him and he was indeed walking towards them, but what made Lance’s breath stick in his throat was the expression on his face. The frown had disappeared completely, and he was smiling. He was fucking _smiling._ At _Lance!_

“Um, hi,” he said, awkward and a little hesitant once he arrived at their table. Pidge and Hunk were staring dumbly at him, and color started blossoming on Keith’s cheeks. It was adorable, and Lance suddenly wanted to stick his head in the sand and pretend that his dignity was still intact and he hadn’t just thought that.

“Hi,” he answered instead, equally awkward.

And then the four of them were silent, and the awkwardness only grew.

Keith fidgeted, seemingly about to bolt, and Lance didn’t want him to go yet but wasn’t sure what to say or do to prevent him from doing so and so he blurted, “Oh, yeah! Here, I have your things. Thank you, you know, for the other day.” He took the bag from the seat where he had left it and handed it to Keith, who took it with a nervous smile.

“Ah, yeah, no problem. Um, I should—I should go.”

Lance kinda wanted him to stay, but wasn’t able to say anything before Keith was gone.

“Oh, wow,” Hunk said. His eyes were wide open. “When did _that_ happen?”

“I knew it!” Pidge grinned. “I knew your ridiculous aversion was just a front!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lance said loudly, then took a bite of his goo. He ignored the fact that his ears were burning.

“You liiiike him!” Pidge sing-songed.

“I do not!”

“Yes. Just admit it, you think he’s cute.”

Lance groaned and hid his face in his hands. He might as well admit that much, or the teasing would never cease. “Yeah, okay. He isn’t as bad as I thought. We talked a little on Saturday, I met his brother. Happy?”

Pidge grinned again. Her eyes sparkled. Hunk, who had taken off his medical mask to eat, was covering his smile with his hands.

“Very.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m going to see Allura. Wanna come with?” Lance asked, trying to sound nonchalant and managing well enough. Sweat was running down the back of his neck, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from flickering towards the dark vehicle he was pretty sure had been following him. He didn’t want to believe it—he had been pretty sure that his kidnapping in the other timeline had been a thing of opportunity, but once he saw that SUV again he couldn’t shake off his paranoia. He was sure he had seen it that morning at least once, and another time the day before.

“Can’t. Sorry, man, I promised Kylie to help her out with her homework today,” Hunk said apologetically.

“Dad’s gonna take me to the Science Conference at GGU,” Pidge said, enthusiastic.

Lance forced himself to smile. “Nah, it’s okay. I’m gonna, uh. I’m gonna take the bus, then.” That should be safer than walking, right?

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you usually walk there from here?”

“Yes, but—I don’t, uh. I don’t feel like walking today. I’m pretty tired.”

“Hey, maybe you could ask Keith to take you,” Hunk said, and Lance could hear the smirk in his voice. He frowned in confusion.

“What?”

“Hey, Keith!” Hunk called, making Lance jump at the unexpected booming of his voice. Alarmed, he turned around to see Keith pushing his bike. He’d always envied him for having it, before. Powerful and bright and sleek, that machine was a thing of beauty. “Where' you going?”

Keith blinked and squinted in their direction, then maneuvered to come closer to their group.

“Sorry, what? I couldn’t hear you from there,” he said.

“Nothing, he was just saying bye—”

“Where are you going, man? Lance here doesn’t feel so good and needs to go to Altea—you know, the bookstore? Think you could give him a ride?”

Lance spluttered, not so much at the actual words Hunk said, but at Pidge’s soft, amused laugh. Keith, however, didn’t seem to notice any of it, and simply shrugged.

“Sure. That’s close to the station, right? I’m going that way, anyway. I’ve got another helmet.” He opened the back compartment and took out a helmet that was identical to the one he had on his arm, except for the fact that it was black instead of red. It had the same white design similar to a stylized “v”. They were both rather cool. “Here,” he said, offering it to Lance.

Lance looked at it for a moment without moving. His brain wasn’t really processing what happened, and it was taking him a while to reboot. Finally, he reacted and snatched the helmet from Keith’s hands. “Uh.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Thanks.”

“All right! See you later, Lance!”

“Have fun! Drive carefully!”

“I—Yeah. Uh, bye, guys,” Lance said, watching bemusedly as his two best friends hurried away.

“So…why the used books store?” Keith asked, dragging Lance’s attention back to him.

“Uh? Ah. I’m gonna see my cousin.”

“Ah.” Keith nodded and adjusted his own helmet, before mounting his bike. Lance looked at him for a moment, entranced. Then the guy turned his head towards Lance. “Well, aren’t you coming?”

Lance startled out of his zone and nodded, putting and adjusting the helmet before gingerly getting behind Keith on the bike. He hesitated for a moment on where to put his hands, but decided before his pause was noticeable to just suck it up and put them on Keith’s hips. He was warm.

“Ready?” Keith asked. Lance nodded again, and Keith revved the bike. It roared to life, and then they were zooming away from the school.

After a moment of fright in which Lance’s grip turned almost a vice around Keith’s waist, he relaxed and turned his head away from where he had hidden it between Keith’s shoulder blades. He hummed, smiling a bit as they drove through the traffic, passing cars like a breeze. Keith was a good driver, Lance could admit.

Then he saw it, from the corner of his eye.

Dark. Big. Familiar.

It was the car; the one that Lance thought was following him.

His spine straightened as a chill ran down his spine. Keith moved his head a bit and yelled something that sounded vaguely questioning, but the roar of the engine didn’t let Lance hear. The thundering of his heart didn’t help, either.

A bus blocked his sight and Lance blinked. The car was gone. He looked around as much as he could from his position, and when he didn’t see it again, he patted Keith’s stomach softly to let him know he was okay.

A honk, a screech, a loud scream.

Something crashed against them and made Keith lose control of the bike. The world spun; there was a dark SUV.

With bile in his throat, Lance closed his eyes.

“ _Bring the fucking pendant!”_

He fell.

 

* * *

 

“Well, aren’t you coming?” Keith said, and Lance sprung to his feet before the boy could notice he was on the floor. His hands trembled as he clutched the helmet, clammy and sweaty. Breathing was difficult, and he heaved.

“Uh. Ah.” Lance couldn’t get on that bike. He couldn’t bear to be the cause Keith had an accident like that. He wasn’t sure, but he had the feeling that neither of them would have got out of that collision walking. They could have _died._ And it would have been Lance’s fault.

“Lance? You don’t look too good. Are you okay?” Keith took off the helmet and got down the bike. He carefully took Lance’s helmet and put it away. Lance’s hands kept shaking. “Do you need the nurse?”

Lance shook his head, unable to speak. He glanced around quickly and almost flinched when he saw the car. Without thinking, he grabbed Keith by the wrist and pulled him inside the school building again.

“Lance?” Keith’s frown was deep, but the expression on his face was purely concern. “What’s wrong?”

Lance bit his lip, crossing his arms and clutching his forearms in an attempt to stop the trembling. Unbidden, his eyes sought out the door, the windows.

“Lance.”

“I think—” Lance gulped. His throat felt raw. “No. I know there’s a car following me. I’ve been seeing it since—Saturday. It’s the same. I’m. I’m scared, Keith.”

Keith’s eyes grew wide, and then he scowled. Lance flinched and closed his eyes. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Keith taking out his phone and immediately making a call.

“Shiro, Lance’s in trouble,” he said without preambles. There was a moment of silence. “No, you don’t—it’s a car. Someone’s following him. Since Saturday. Yeah, they’re outside.” He looked questioningly at Lance, and he nodded, even though he was stunned. “Outside. What do we—stay here, okay. You comin’? …Okay. Thanks, Shiro.” He ended the call and put his phone down, his face serious but giving off a satisfied vibe.

“Wha— _why?_ ”

“Shiro’s a cop,” Keith said. His jaw was tense, and his eyes were narrowed and fixed on the entrance. “He’ll help. We just gotta wait.”

 

* * *

 

The car followed them from afar. Lance could see the knuckles of Shiro’s flesh hand turn white on the wheel. They didn’t talk at all in the way to the station, the air was too filled with tension and unease to do that.

Shiro had told them he couldn’t do anything to the people in the car unless they did something to harm them. Stupid law with its stupid technicalities.

When they arrived to the station, Shiro hurried them inside and walked right behind Lance. Lance was grateful for the gesture, and felt oddly reassured. Safer.

He followed Keith around a few desks and into the elevator, then around some more cramped desks until they reached a tiny office with a plaque that read ‘Inspector Shirogane’. Shiro closed the door behind them and then dropped down on his chair behind the desk. He passed a hand through his hair twice, then exhaled deeply and focused his eyes on Lance.

Lance squirmed.

“What’s going on?”

Lance shrugged helplessly, grimacing. “I really don’t have a clue. I’ve. I’ve been seeing this same car around since Saturday, though at the beginning I didn’t think much of it.” A lie, because he couldn’t really tell them about the other timeline and the kidnapping attempt, could he? “Then on Sunday morning, and this morning when I came to school. And—” He flinched, remembering the crash and the pain and the fear for both his and Keith’s lives. “Well, now after school. I’m not. I don’t know what they want with me. It—it doesn’t make _sense._ I’m a nobody, my family isn’t rich, I’m—”

A hand touched his arm tentatively, and Lance stopped babbling. Keith smiled at him, though it was a bit tense.

“It’s okay, Lance. We’ll figure it out.”

Lance held his breath for a moment before exhaling slowly, trying to calm down. He nodded briefly and sat back down. He didn’t remember standing up. He clutched his pendant with his right hand, trying to think.

His pendant.

Eyes wide, he jerked his hand up and stared at the blue stone encased in a simple steel-colored frame. No, it couldn’t be. It didn’t make—but they had mentioned something, something about a pendant, before. When they crashed Keith’s bike. It was foggy, but—

Hadn’t Allura asked him if he hadn’t picked up something new lately? Lance gasped. He had never thought about mentioning the pendant, it had never crossed his mind! He’d have it for literal _months,_ how did that even count as ‘lately’?

But if it was true, then—

He needed Allura. He needed her _now._

“Hey, wait! Where are you going?”

“I need to go.”

“Whoa, whoa. Lance, you can’t go anywhere right now!”

“But I need—”

“There’s a fucking car following you! You can’t!”

Lance growled, desperate. “I think I know what’s happening, but I need to talk to Allura! And Coran. Guys, they’re just across the street, please.”

Keith and Shiro looked at each other and seem to communicate without words. Lance was practically vibrating with nervous energy.

“Look, bud. You can’t go outside,” Shiro said, and before Lance could protest, he added, “stay here with Keith, all right? I’ll go fetch… Allura, you said?”

“And Coran. My cousin and her godfather. They’re at the little bookshop across the street.”

“Okay. So I’ll bring them here, but you must promise me you’ll stay in here, okay?”

Lance pursed his lips, but nodded. “Okay.”

Shiro smiled, relieved. “I’ll be right back.”

 

* * *

 

Allura entered the tiny room like a storm, her hair dancing around her form.

“Lance!” she said, and the worry was obvious in her voice. Lance had jumped out of his seat in surprise, and was glad he did so when not even a second later he had an armful of Allura clutching him close. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Allura,” he said, trying to calm her down by running a hand down her back. He made eye contact with Keith, who was also on his feet and regarding Allura with suspicion. “Keith, this is my cousin, Allura. Allura, that’s Keith, a classmate.”

Allura composed herself and pulled away from the impromptu embrace. She placed a lock of hair behind her ear and extended her right hand to Keith. “Nice to meet you, Keith.”

“Uh, yeah,” Keith said awkwardly, and briefly shook her hand. “Same.”

“So, now that that’s out of the way,” she said, turning back to Lance and pinning him with intense blue eyes, “what happened? Why are you here? Why did a cop show up in my store telling us that you needed us?”

“I would also like to know,” Coran said, who had just entered the office with Shiro. The man nodded at Keith. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

Lance looked at the four people that were looking at him in the cramped little office and sighed. His hand went to his pendant, and he clutched it for a moment. “Okay,” he said, “you’ll need to sit. There are…some things I need to explain.”

Allura narrowed her eyes and shot a suspicious look at the pendant. God, she didn’t miss anything, did she? Shiro cleared his throat and called for Keith’s help to bring in one of the small couches outside the office, as they didn’t have enough chairs.

Lance opted to sit on the desk, and waited patiently for everyone to get comfortable while he thought how should he break down the topic.

With Allura and Coran on the couch, and Keith and Shiro standing at its sides—if they weren’t going to sit, then why bring in the couch?—Lance tensed.

“Well, we’re ready. Lance, please tell us,” Allura said, and her eyes were big and bright. It wasn’t fair, Lance couldn’t resist those eyes. Never could.

“Okay. Well, do you remember the conversation we had on Saturday morning?” Lance started, looking at Allura and Coran meaningfully. Allura’s eyebrows rose, but she nodded. “You asked me if I had eaten anything weird lately, or picked up something somewhere, right? Well, I hadn’t. I really hadn’t. Not _lately,”_ he stressed the last word because dammit, it was important. Now Allura was frowning, and Coran looked intrigued. Keith and Shiro were completely lost. “But this—” he lifted the pendant so everyone was able to see it. “Well, I found this about two months ago, in an alley somewhere.”

“Give that here,” Allura ordered. Her voice was almost cold. Lance hurriedly jumped down from the desk and crossed the small distance to her, taking the necklace off and handing it to his cousin. She immediately started looking it over.

“Sorry, but what has that anything to do with the car that’s following you?” Keith asked, annoyed and obviously confused.

Lance flinched as Allura’s head snapped up and she hissed, “What?!”

“I think—no, I know they want it. That thing. That’s the thing that lets me jump, Allura. I’ve…I’ve done it again.”

“When?”

“What?”

“After I left. I tried a couple’ times, and at first it didn’t work, but then it did, and I think it was because of the shot of adrenaline or something like that so I jumped from the bridge to—

“You did _what?!”_

“—try it again, and the thing is that _it worked,_ Allura. It was Friday morning and I was late to school. Then I had the pop quiz and I knew the questions so I knew how to answer them, then I avoided the disaster in Chem, and the food fight, and detention. The accident, too. I got a fucking date with Nyma on Saturday, after I came by to give you your gift and let you know all over again that I was jumping in time and then everything went to _shit_ when she didn’t...everything went to shit. I went to Hunk’s, and then I was walking home when that stupid car stopped right beside me, and then those men tried to pull me inside.” There was a sharp inhalation of breath, but Lance wasn’t looking at any of them; his eyes were fixed on a stain on the wallpaper without actually seeing it.

He took a deep breath but continued, knowing that he needed to finish telling his story now or he would never do.

“And I panicked. I struggled, and then suddenly I was back on the river, after...after falling from the bridge. Shiro helped me out. He thought I was trying to commit suicide.” He chuckled, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “I really thought it had been a one-time thing, you know? That timeline didn’t exist anymore, everything was fine.” He pursed his lips and hugged himself. His nails were leaving sharp indentations on his forearms. “But that’s not the case. I saw it yesterday, the car. And this morning again, though I didn’t think it could be the same. But then I saw it after school, and then it caused an accident when Keith was driving me here—”

“What?!”

“—and they said, ‘take that pendant’, they said. I heard it just before I jumped back to just after Keith gave me the extra helmet. So yeah. That thing. They want that thing.”

The room was silent for a long, tense minute as everyone digested that information. Lance couldn’t blame them, it was too much even for him, and _he_ was the one with the crazy magic time-jumping device.

Allura turned the pendant over in her hand, one, two, three times.

“So, that day in detention,” Keith said slowly. Lance looked at him, a little apprehensive, but he didn’t seem to be angry, or incredulous. More like, considering. “You weren’t really ‘doing acrobatics’, huh? You had just...jumped? Back in...time?”

Lance’s eyes grew wide. Keith believed him! “Yes!” he said, probably a bit too enthusiastic. Still, he couldn’t keep the smile away from his face. “That’s actually the first time I managed to do it on purpose, right before I, uh, right before I jumped from the bridge.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at him. “Do I even want to know where you jumped from to do that?”

Rubbing the back of his head, Lance laughed sheepishly. “Ah, just from the bus.”

“Lance!” Allura exclaimed.

“What? It wasn’t so bad.”

“No, not that. Though we will be talking about taking risks later, mister,” she threatened. Then she shook her head and held up the pendant. “This. Right here. This is Matt’s logo—well, Slav Tech’s logo.”

“What?” Lance demanded, taking the pendant from Allura and inspecting it closely. He didn’t see anything. “Where?”

“Here, look,” she said, angling it so that the light could hit it in a certain way. There, barely noticeable, were the ST initials inside a ring that was the logo of Matt’s company.

“It is!” Lance exclaimed, amazed. “Maybe he knows what this is!”

“And why there’s people searching for it,” Shiro said, nodding. He pushed himself away from where he had been resting against the wall, and put his hands on his hips. “Can you call him here, miss?” he asked Allura politely.

“Allura’s fine, sir,” she said, already unlocking her phone.

“Then call me Shiro,” he replied. She smiled at him, and then put the phone to her ear.

“So, how does it work?” Keith asked, distracting Lance form Allura’s conversation. When Lance only looked at him quizzically, he huffed. “You know, the...time-traveling. Jumping.”

“Ah.” Lance shrugged, self-conscious. “I don’t really know. It’s not like I even knew that this thing was responsible,” he said, holding up the pendant. Keith eyed it with curiosity, but also a healthy bit of distrust. “But I guess...adrenaline? The first time I used it, I almost died. Then actually jumping from heights or, well, dangerous places. More or less. And then other two times not on purpose, and those were—scary. Yeah.”

“It sounds terrible,” Keith said, rather dryly. Lance started, looked at him, and laughed.

“Yeah, actually, it is. At first I thought it was a good thing, but it has brought a lot more grief than anything else.”

“Matt says he’s coming,” Allura announced.

“Do you think he knows about this?” Coran asked.

Allura sighed, shoulders sagging. “I sure hope so.

 

* * *

 

It was twenty minutes later that an officer entered the room, out of breath, and said, “there’s been an accident! Two blocks from here—a grey Honda Civic, plaque unknown.”

Shiro was on his feet and already herding the officer off the office, away from the civilians, but in that moment Allura gasped and paled.

“That’s—that’s Matt’s car!” she said. Her voice wavered. Lance’s breath caught in his throat, and something cold and hard dropped in his stomach. She was clutching Coran’s arm while he helped her stand. “Please, tell me—the—is he okay?”

The officer stuttered and looked questioningly at Shiro, who looked unsure.

“ _Please.”_ Allura sounded devastated, and it made Lance’s heart ache. Shiro visibly wavered. “Please, he’s my _fiance.”_

Shiro sighed. “Patterson, give me a description,” he asked the officer. “It may be a different car,” he explained gently to Allura, who nodded. Her lips were thin.

“Male, Caucasian. Twenty to twenty-five years old. Brown hair. A scar on left cheek.” With every word, Allura seemed to lose more and more color. The officer hesitated and looked questioningly at Shiro, again. He nodded tightly, and the officer grimaced. “I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am. He—he died on impact.”

“No.” Allura collapsed, and the only reason she wasn’t on the floor was Coran’s tender but strong grip. Two tears fell from her eyes without any kind of sound, but then the dam broke and she started to sob in earnest. Coran pulled her into his chest to hide her from the world, burying a hand in her hair.

Lance’s own knees failed him and he fell back against the desk. Everything around him seemed to lose focus as he sank into his thoughts, unable to understand what was happening. This couldn’t…this couldn’t _be._

“—nother vehicle, a black SUV. The driver survived, but—”

Lance’s focus immediately went to the mention of the black SUV, and he straightened, suddenly filled with tension. “A black SUV, you said?” he demanded, shocking everyone into silence. The officer nodded, uncertain, and Lance felt horror and hatred burning through his veins. He snarled. “Those bastards! I—” He had clutched the pendant in an unconscious gesture, and his thoughts screeched to a halt.

What was he doing? Why was he waiting time here, when he could be changing history?

He looked to the office window but discarded it immediately; it was too small, and had probably bulletproof glass. The stairs, it was.

“I’m gonna make this right,” he stated, putting the pendant securely around his neck and daring anyone to stop him with his gaze. The only one who looked confused and a little bit alarmed was Pattison—Peterson, Penington?—and he was also the only one who actively tried to stop him from running out of the office. However, Shiro hauled him bodily aside after it became obvious he wouldn’t move from the doorframe, even after Lance snarled at him.

Lance nodded once in gratitude and then he was running for the stairs, intent on just one thing: make it right.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh, this chapter was a terrible struggle, but I'm more or less happy with how it turned out. (Lmao, the last scene may be unrealistic, but...please roll with the punches, I'm tired :P)
> 
> We are almost at the end! Thank you for reading! <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long! I had to rewrite and edit and re-edit this a lot because I hated this chapter so much, ahaha. I'm still not completely happy but! I can't work on this anymore it's driving me crazy. So, here it is!

The first thing Lance registered as he tumbled was Shiro's voice.

“And why there are people searching for it,” he said, and Lance could see him nodding and pushing himself away from the wall even with his eyes closed, so close was the memory. “Can you—?”

“NO!”

Everyone jumped and turned to look at him as he tried to get to his feet. His breathing was hard and fast; the adrenaline still high after jumping down the stairs and leaping back in time, so it was difficult to get up, especially when his legs were so shaky.

“Lance?” Allura prompted, uncertain. Her phone was on her hand.

“You can’t, you—” Roughly passing a hand through his hair, Lance breathed in deeply, held the air in for a couple of seconds, and exhaled through his nose. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier, calmer. “You can’t call him here, Allura. They’ll—they’ll get him, if you do.”

Allura’s eyes went wide with sudden understanding and a little dash of fear. The grip on her phone tightened as she brought it close to her chest. “What happened? What did they—?”

“You don’t want to know.” Lance shook his head and chuckled darkly. “You really don’t.”

He had finally gotten his legs to support his weight again, and he took in a deep breath, trying to calm the rest of his body and fight the surge of panic that was threatening to break out in lungs.

“You just...you just jumped back, right?” Keith asked tentatively. Lance lifted his head and caught his gaze, then nodded once, sharply. Keith grimaced. “That bad?”

He huffed. “Let’s just say… I’m actually glad that I still have this thing,” Lance said, picking up the thin chain that held the pendant around his neck before flicking it. The little thing bounced against his chest in a way that was familiar after months of wearing it, and Lance scowled down at it. “Fuck, I hate this thing so much.”

A hand on his shoulder made him look up, and he was surprised to find that it belonged to Shiro. The man had pursed lips, and his eyes were bright but serious. “We’ll figure it out, Lance,” he said, and Lance wished he believed him. As if he could se nse his doubts, Shiro tightened the grip on his shoulder; his gaze sharpened. “We  _ _will.”_ _

Lance took a deep breath and nodded. Shiro’s hand fell from his shoulder as the man took a step back. He walked around the desk to sit on his chair for the first time since he went to retrieve Allura and Coran, then looked around the room. “Ideas?”

For a moment, nobody answered. They exchanged worried glances, but it didn’t seem like any of them had a plan.

“Matt’s still our best option,” Allura said, breaking the silence. It was obvious by the way she bit her lip that it worried her. “He might know what this is, and we need that information.”

“Maybe we could go to him,” Keith said, tone hesitant. When everyone’s eyes fell on him, he straightened his spine and threw his shoulders back. “We know he can’t come here, but we need him, so why couldn’t we go to him?”

“They followed us, before,” Lance pointed out.

“Yeah, but they didn’t do anything to us,” Keith said.

Lance bit the inside of his cheek and thought. It was...true, in a sense. They intercepted both the bike and Matt’s car, but they didn’t even get close to Shiro’s, probably because it was police. Maybe. “It could work, if—” he looked questioningly at Shiro, and the man nodded.

“We can take my car,” he said, before looking at the people gathered in his office. “It’ll be a tight fit, and certainly against regulations, but...this is a special case. Miss—”

“Allura, please.”

“—Allura, then. Could you call your contact and tell him not to go outside the building, and to wait for us?”

“Certainly.” She nodded and quickly dialed. Lance listened shamelessly together with the rest of them to her side of the call. “Matt? Yeah, listen to me. We’re at the police—no, no. We’re fine, mostly. No. No— _Matt!_ Calm down and listen to me. You _can’t_ go outside. You can’t. We’ll tell you everything once we’re there, just—Yes. Me, Coran, Lance, a classmate of Lance’s and a police officer...Thank you. Yes, we’ll be there soon. Stay inside, Matt. Please. I love you.” She put down the phone and cut off the call. When she next looked at Shiro, then at Lance, there was fire in her eyes. “He said he’ll wait for us, and will let security know to let us pass.”

Lance jumped, adrenaline surging anew now that they had a plan of action. “What are we waiting for, then? Let’s go!”

 

* * *

 

The first thing they heard as they opened the door to Matt’s office in ST was a shout of, “Allura!”

Allura dashed in front of them, the first one to enter the office, and threw herself at Matt. He caught her around the waist and tightly hugged her to his chest. Lance let out a long breath as he felt a weight lifting off his shoulders now that he saw Matt was okay. He never wanted to see Allura break down like that again. He never wanted her to feel that kind of pain again.

“I was worried sick after your call,” Matt said, still not letting her go. “What happened?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” she hedged, but Lance wasn’t about to let her beat around the bush.

Too many terrible things had already happened, and he refused to let them keep happening if he could do something to stop them. He took off the pendant and walked right up to the hugging couple, thrusting it right into Matt’s line of sight. “Do you, by any chance, know what this is?”

“Lance!” Allura chastised him, but he ignored her. Matt was already letting her go and touching the pendant, eyes wide and incredulous. Lance didn't let it go, as Matt didn't actually grab it.

“Wha—How? How do you have this, this is—” He sputtered, then looked at Lance. “Where did you get this?”

“So you do know what this is,” Lance said with satisfaction. That was something, at least.

Matt laughed, a bit hysterically, muffling it behind one hand. “Do I know what—I’m the Head Developer of this project! And this—this is, _fuck,_ this is __finished__ and that’s not—” He rubbed his face and looked at them one by one in the eyes. Lance was the last. “Right now, this is a _prototype._ _Ideas and conjectures_ sitting in my lab waiting to be put together.” He gulped, looking at the pendant again with eyes that were almost wild. His next words were barely louder than a whisper. “What the __actual fuck.”__

Lance felt a spark of sympathy for the distraught man, but pushed it aside for the moment. They didn’t have time for long-winded explanations, so he cut to the chase. “Well, I found this one on a downtown alley about two months ago.”

The sound Matt made could not be described as anything else but strangled. “What?”

Lance nodded but continued without elaborating. “And it lent me its magical time-leaping powers for the first time on Friday, then several times after that. And now there are some lunatics following me that want to take it from me no matter what they have to do to get it.”

“Oh my god I—I need to sit.” Matt took a few steps back and then flopped down on the chair behind the desk, one of his hands flat on the wooden surface and the other on his forehead. He was pale. “You said—” He cleared his throat and looked at Lance again. “You said it works?”

“Yeah. Like a charm.” Lance grimaced, putting it back around his neck and then toying with it. He huffed and added, “Didn’t actually know I was using it before my last jump, though.”

Matt blinked, then brightened. Lance was suddenly reminded of Pidge going through one of her invention highs. “Do you—I mean, a few questions? Like, how far back have you gone? For how long can you stay? Can you go back and forward? How much can you change? And is it permanent, or can you just—?”

“Matt,” Allura interrupted the barrage of questions, and Lance looked at her gratefully. She seemed to be trying to look serious even though she was fighting a smile. “Focus. People after Lance, remember?”

Matt cringed and looked apologetically at Lance. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, bud. But I don’t know how I can be of help with that. I mean, theoretically only __you__ should be able to remember the, ah, future if you leap back.” He shrugged and grimaced. “So I don’t know how anyone could be aware of the existence of the pendant, especially if you yourself didn’t know what it was or how to use it.”

So, nothing? Even after finding the source, they were still in the dark. 

“Well, I think it’s obvious,” Coran said, surprising him and everyone else, apparently, as they all turned to look at him with curious eyes.

“Coran?”

Coran hummed, twirling his mustache and looking around the room. “Young Lance here told us that he found the artifact two months ago, right?” He waited for Lance’s nod before continuing. “And Matthew has confirmed that he’s currently working on a prototype of said artifact. Now,” he said, putting one finger up as he counted, “what we know is that there are people trying to get that artifact, even though in fact it doesn’t even exist yet in the present, or it shouldn’t. But they are after it, and they went for Lance, who has the one that is in working condition. So, the logical conclusion is—”

“They came from the future,” Shiro and Lance breathed at the same time. Lance could see it, now. It didn't exist yet, but it _would,_ in the future. And someone had brought it back.

Coran nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! Somehow, some _when,_ a person—or people—came from a much distant future, one in which your device was finished, and lost it in our past. Then Lance found it, and now they must have tracked it down.”

“And they want it back.”

“That makes sense,” Matt said. He rubbed his face and slumped back in the chair. “What it doesn’t, however, is how anyone could get their hands on it. Currently, the only one who has access to it is me, and unless I have a severe case of amnesia and a double personality disorder, I’m not the one that came and is following Lance.”

They fell back into contemplative silence.

“Spies?” Lance suggested after a moment, shrugging. The looks on everyone's faces were incredulous. He scowled and crossed his arms, uncomfortable. “What?”

“Are you—?” Keith started, then stopped. A frown wrinkled his brow as he contemplated.

“That actually makes sense,” Allura said, looking pensive.

“Oh my God,” Matt said, faintly. When Lance turned to him he was sitting straight on the chair and booting up his laptop.

“Matt?”

“It does. Spies. It makes sense,” he said, typing away at a mad pace that Lance had only seen Pidge use before. “You see, there’s this—” He cut himself off as he made a noise of triumph, picked up the laptop and turned it so that everyone could see the screen. The dominant colors of the website were purple and gold. _“GALRA Co._ has been our competitor for years. They were actually at the top of the market until five years ago or so, when we finally surpassed them. They’re…aggressive, in a way that other companies aren’t, and I wouldn’t really be surprised if they were trying for corporate espionage to get back to the top. They have been accused of such things before, though it was never confirmed.”

Everyone fell silent as they looked at him, stunned.

“It’s possible.”

“Yeah, it is. But…” He sighed and rubbed his eyes again, head tilting back onto the back of the chair. He seemed to deflate, all pent up energy dissipating. “It’s not enough, is it?”

“No,” Shiro said, defeated. “That gives us a possible motive, but not a suspect. It’s not even enough to ask for a warrant, as it is just speculation.”

Lance chewed his lip and started pacing. Keith growled and stomped towards the door.

“Keith?”

“Can’t we just—Can’t we just go outside and arrest them?” he asked, irritated. “They’ve been following us. They’ve been following us from __school.__ Isn’t that enough to, I don’t know, charge them with stalking or something?”

Lance was totally on board with that. “Yeah!” he said, pointing to him and then turning to the adults. “We totally should. Shiro, we could ask __questions.__ We could know what they’re up to, and even if—I can go back after that, if you want, and it’d be as if nothing at all happened, but I’d have the info and then we could actually __do__ something!”

Shiro shook his head. “As much as I’d like to, I cannot risk any of you like that. It’s too much of a gamble.”

“Shiro, we’re talking time travel mojo here. Everything’s a gamble.”

Shiro pursed his lips and tapped his forearm.

Lance, noticing that he may be convinced yet, pounced. “So think about it. It’s probably our best shot. What other way is there? Because if you have one, please tell me, I’d love to hear it.”

It wasn't Shiro who answered that, but Matt.

“Well,” he said hesitantly, “there’s another possibility I can think of.”

Lance’s eyebrows rose.

“What is it, Matt?” Allura asked.

Matt coughed and shifted his weight, before standing up and rubbing his hands together. “I—I don’t like it, though.”

“It can’t be worse than direct confrontation.”

Matt grimaced. “Maybe,” he conceded.

“Well, let’s hear it.”

“One of us can go back—and I mean, far back. To before Lance picked up the pendant, maybe, if that’s possible. Though I guess it is, after all, seen as he has it even though it doesn’t currently exist in its complete and functional form—”

“Matt.”

“What? Ah. Sorry, right. Going back, so. I’d say, the best option is probably me. I could just...destroy this one and completely scrap the plans on the one I’m working on now.”

“Wait, what? You’d destroy it?” Lance asked, bewildered. Sure, it was dangerous, and Lance didn’t have any love lost for it after everything, but still...it was certainly a brilliant invention. To completely scrap it…

Matt looked pained, but determined. He nodded once, sharply. “Yes. I would. It is obvious that I haven’t contemplated every angle of this project before now. I never thought—never _imagined_ it could be used for something bad, which is my mistake. I have to put it to rights,”  he said, though the last part was mostly to himself. Then he looked at Lance, face honest. “And Lance…thank you. I have the feeling that if you weren’t the one to pick it up, things could have been a lot, __lot__ worse.”

Lance shivered as cold dread slithered down his spine. Matt was right, and it was a little terrifying. He had seen movies; he had read books. The idea of bad people doing evil things with time travel is nothing new to him at all, and yet he hadn’t stopped to think about it. What if—so many things could have gone wrong if someone without any morals got their hands on the pendant; Lance felt suddenly sick. He looked at the thing in hands with disgust.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Lance said. He was about to add something else, or maybe ask a question, but he honestly forgot what it was when the door of the office slammed open with a resounding crash.

Lance jumped, startled, and turned around to see what was happening, but someone was tugging at his arm and making him move back. He lost his balance and fell to the floor, but this didn't stop Matt from tugging at him. People shouted, and there were thuds and orders and more noise—were they fighting? Shots. He made a noise of protest: he had to help! He was pushed back, away from the door and the people invading it, behind the desk, _under_ the desk.

“Keep down, down!” Matt hissed in his ear when Lance tried to stand.

“ENOUGH!” someone shouted, their voice booming through the room and making Lance tense. He couldn’t see what was happening, but the room was suddenly silent and the sounds of struggling stopped. “That’s it. Now, the people behind the desk. Come up slowly and with your hands over your head. Visible, if you want your friends to still be in one piece by the end of the day.”

At his side, Matt swore.

“Hurry up!” the man barked, and there was a pained grunt to accompany his order.

Lance looked at Matt, eyes wide, and saw how conflicted he was. Even then, they understood with just a look that neither of them could let any of their friends be at risk, so they did as were asked and put their hands over their heads.

When Lance was back on his feet, he could finally see what was going on on the other side of the room. His breath caught and his heart skipped a beat when he took in the scene in front of his eyes. Coran stood in front of Allura, crowding her against the wall while trying to cover her from the three weapons pointed in their direction. Shiro was on the floor, on his stomach, being restrained by a woman straddling his back with a knife nicking at his neck. He looked furious, even with the blood on his face, and Lance was sure he would still be fighting if it wasn’t for the fact that there was one big burly man holding Keith at gunpoint.

Lance hated his life.

“Good, good,” said the man holding Keith. “I don’t know how you figured out that you were being followed, nor do I really care. I’m being paid to recover a special item, and that’s what I’m going to do. Now,” his eyes fixed on Lance, but his grip on Keith didn’t falter. The gun was pressed against Keith’s throat, which made it impossible for him to say anything, but his eyes spoke of terror and fury. “Boy. Bring that shiny little thing you have there and give it to me, and nobody has to get hurt.”

Mercenaries. Someone had paid off _mercenaries_ to get a hold of the fucking pendant. Lance’s head swam as his fingers closed around the thing almost unconsciously. He knew they wouldn’t hesitate. Mercenaries didn’t. They hadn’t when they tried to kidnap him that first time, or when they crashed Keith’s bike, or when they killed Matt in transit. They wouldn’t hesitate to do it now again, and Lance couldn’t live with that. He couldn’t let his friends be hurt.

He hobbled as he took a step forward. His legs felt weak, his throat was dry. His heart was beating way too loudly against his ribs, as if it wanted to break free and run for the hills. He took another step.

“Good boy, come here.” The man flashed a shark-like grin, showing way too many teeth.

“Don’t!” Keith wheezed, and the man retaliated by snarling and digging the gun into tender skin. Lance flinched in sympathy for the pain that must have caused and looked away.

He couldn’t give the pendant to them. It was too dangerous; they were too dangerous. His eyes flickered over the whole room, trying to find another solution, another way out—

He caught Matt’s eyes, and every piece came together.

“Two months,” he rasped, his mouth too dry to produce more sounds. Matt’s eyes widened in comprehension, and he nodded.

“Make me destroy it,” he whispered.

“Stop talking and come here. NOW.”

Lance turned and looked steadily at the man, then stepped on the chair to climb onto the top of the desk. Two of the other women who had been keeping their weapons trained on Coran and Allura were now pointing them at him, but he ignored them. His eyes were trained on the man holding Keith.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, boy, but you better come down here before I kill your friend.”

Lance took a deep breath, then glared. “No.”

The man snarled and spat, “You asked for it.”

There was a shot, and screams, but Lance tried to focus on the pull of gravity dragging him down after he jumped with his eyes closed, wishing with all his might that this worked.

It _had_ to work.

And he fell.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR! :D
> 
>  
> 
> (only the epilogue left!)


	7. Epilogue: Keith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *drumroll* TA-DAH! I'm alive and I bring with me the last part of this piece. I'm sorry it took me so long and that this is so short, but I haven't been writing much and I kinda fell off the fandom, BUT! I MANAGED!
> 
> Thank you for following this story til the end! ❤

“Aw, don’t be like that. Once more?”

Keith huffed and scowled, giving Lance a pointed look. “That’s what you said last time, and yet here we are. I played three pieces for you, _three,_ when we had agreed on just _one.”_

His boyfriend pouted in a way that was so exaggerated that it should have been ridiculous, but Keith just found it cute, instead.

“But you’re _so good!”_  Lance protested, putting his hands up and wiggling long fingers in the air as if to make a point. “Your fingers make all those squiggles in the sheets come alive. It’s almost magic!”

“I’m terrible,” Keith denied, deadpan. “It’s been ages since I last played. I make so many mistakes I cringe every time.” And he did. It was a struggle to get to the end of the line without wanting to throw everything aside and sulk.

It was Lance’s turn to huff. “Now, listen here,” he said as he crossed his arms, expressive eyebrows drawn together between his eyes. “You said so yourself: it’s been ages since you last touched that piano, so give yourself a little credit. Even if there are mistakes, I couldn’t hear them, and the music sounded beautiful to me. That? That’s talent,” he said, honestly impressed, and Keith had to duck his head, suddenly embarrassed.

“Okay,” he said, voice hoarse, before clearing his throat and getting back into position: back straight, head up. He could see Lance doing a little victory dance from the corner of his eye, so he had to add, “One more time, Lance. Only one. And that's it, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lance said, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. Then he smiled. “On with it, mullet!”

Keith rolled his eyes so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised if he had damaged something, but couldn’t really suppress a fond smile as he stretched and prepared his hands to play for the fourth time in the day.

He wasn’t sure when things changed, or why. He just knew that one day, about three months ago, things started to shift, first at school, and then in his immediate social circle.

It was in one particular lunchtime in which Keith was sitting alone—like always—and listening to music with his earbuds on that the sudden clatter of a tray being set in front of him surprised him into looking up. To his utter surprise, it was Lance who was sitting down just across from him, either without noticing or not caring that Keith was already sitting there. His mouth moved, shaping words that were drowned by the beats of the music in Keith’s ears, so Keith quickly took off his earbuds.

“What?” he asked, uncertain, when Lance looked at him patiently without repeating his question.

Lance sighed and rolled his eyes, but didn’t react explosively like other times, as Keith was expecting. Instead, he simply said, “I _said,_ is it okay if I sit here? My friends are being dicks and everywhere else is full.”

Keith blinked, surprised, and looked around. Just as Lance said, every other table was at least half-full. He frowned in confusion when he noticed that Nyma’s had a spot clear just beside her, but quickly dismissed it as a coincidence.

“Um. Sure,” he replied awkwardly, shrugging with one shoulder. He was ready to put his earbuds back on, but Lance's next words stalled him.

“So is it me, or Iverson has a bigger stick up his ass than normal lately?”

“Wha—”

“Because, seriously, the man seems to be growling more at anything and everyone. And who knows how the fuck does he manage that? I, for one, could have _sworn_ that the man was born at his grumpiest already.”

Keith hadn't thought that Lance would have wanted to make conversation, so he was a little bit slow to react, but Lance seemed to take him in stride and just kept talking until, eventually, Keith got his head together and was able to answer back.

It had been surprisingly nice, once Keith reminded his body to relax and simply let things happen. He was a little bit suspicious at first, but when it kept happening again and again, day after day until it wasn’t just Lance and Keith, but Lance and Keith and Pidge and Hunk and the excuse of tables being full died, Keith didn't question it any longer. Somehow, he had made friends with people he had until then he had only watched from afar, and he was more than happy with just that.

Then came the study sessions and the weekend outings and before he even realized it he and Lance had been dating for weeks, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Oh, they bickered and fought and competed about a lot of ridiculous things, but there was a current of affection behind every interaction that made Keith feel content and warm.

Lance opened his heart to him, and in turn he learned to trust Lance with his. That’s how he ended up here now, sitting in front of his mom’s old piano, playing her melodies once again. (He hadn’t wanted to touch them again after she died. Not the piano, not the music sheets, not anything that reminded him of her—it was too painful, too raw. But Lance? Lance broke down his walls with his honest curiosity and innocent questions, encouraging Keith to talk about her and her music, and slowly but surely Keith felt himself drift back to that world. The pain was not completely gone, would never be, but it was... duller, now, after the years. A pinprick, sharp but ultimately harmless, concentrated in a single moment before it fades back into nothing, instead of the all-consuming fire of before. Playing now didn't hurt; it made him feel closer to her, remember her in all her glory, and he would be forever grateful to Lance for giving this back to him.)

The last couple of notes fell easily from his fingers and he closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of peace they brought with them. When he finished, he breathed out and opened his eyes, a smile on his lips, and was then promptly smothered by Lance’s cheerful congratulatory hug. Keith laughed helplessly at his boyfriend's antics, and then turned a bit in his seat to be able to hug him back more comfortably.

No, he wasn’t sure what happened, exactly, for his world to change so much in such a short time, but he was grateful for it, nonetheless.

  


FIN

  
  



End file.
